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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



EVANGELISTIC SERMONS 



WITH AN ESSAY 



ON THE 



Scriptural and Cyclic Creed of Baptism 



BV 

ROBT. T.MATHEWS 
Minister of the Main Street Church of Christ, Lexington, Ky. 



>P c 
JUL 27 IB! 

CINCINNATI 

THE STANDARD PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1891 



3Xisaf 
.Mrf E? 




>py right, 1 89 1, by 

The Standard Publishing Co. 

cincinnati, o. 



CONTENTS. 



SERMON I. 

The Place and Power of Prayer in Evangelism. ■« But 
we will continue steadfastly in prayer, and in the ministry 
of the Word" (Acts vi. 4) 9-25 

SERMON II. 

Hearing the Gospel. "Hear, and your soul shall live" 

(Isa. lv. 3) 27-44 

SERMON III. 

Repentance. " And that repentance and remission of sins 
should be preached in his name unto all the nations, 
beginning from Jerusalem " (Luke xxiv. 47) 45-63 

SERMON IV. 

Faith and Life. "That life which I now live in the flesh 
I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who 
loved me, and gave himself up for me" (Gal. ii. 20) 65-92 

SERMON V. 

The Good Confession. "And didst confess the good con- 
fession, in the sight of many witnesses" (1. Tim. vi. I2)__ 93-114 

SERMON VI. 

The Baptism of the Believer. " And when they believed 
Philip preaching good tidings concerning the kingdom of 
God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, 
both men and women" (Acts viii. 12) H5-I34 

SERMON VII. 

Conversion of Young People. "And that from a babe 
thou hast known the sacred writings which are able to 
make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in 
Christ Jesus" (II. Tim. iii. 15) 135-158 

SERMON VIII. 

The Penitent Robber. " And he said, Jesus, remember me 
when thou comest in thy kingdom. And he said unto 
him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me 
in Paradise" (Luke xxiii. 42. 43) 159-180 

(5) 



O CONTENTS. 

SERMON IX. 
Glorifying God in the Name Christian.. " But if a man 
suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed ; but let him 
glorify God in this name" (I. Pet. iv. 16) 181-211 

SERMON X. 
The Fear of Hell. " And be not afraid of them which kill 
the body, but are not able to kill the soul ; but rather fear 
him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell " 
(Matt. x. 28) _' 213-234 

SERMON XI. 
The Self-Respect and Salvation of Young Men. " And 
as he was going forth into the way, there ran one to him, 
and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what 
shall I do that I may inherit eternal life ? And Jesus said 
to him, Why callest thou me good? none is good save one, 
even God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not kill, 
Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false 
witness, Do not defraud, Honor thy father and mother. 
And he said him, Master, all these things have I observed 
from my youth. And Jesus looking upon him, loved him, 
and said unto him, Go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give 
to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven ; and 
come, follow me. But his countenance fell at the saying, 
and he went away sorrowful : for he was one that had great 
possessions" (Mark x. 17-22) 235-250 

SERMON XII. - 
The Possession and Practice of Righteousness. "Blessed 
are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness : for 
they shall be filled " (Matt. v. 6). " He that doeth right- 
eousness is righteous, even as he is righteous" (I. John 
iii. 7) 251-271 

SERMON XIII. 
Crises of Decision in Conversion. "And with many other * 
words he testified, and exhorted them, saying, Save your- 
selves from this crooked generation" (Acts ii. 40) 273-286 

SERMON XIV. 
The Gospel, a Mission and a Culture. " Go ye therefore, 
and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into 
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy 
Spirit : teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I 
commanded you : and lo, I am with you all the days, even 
unto the end of the world " (Matt, xxviii. 19, 20) 287-305 

ESSAY. 
The Scriptural and Catholic Creed of Baptism 3 7~39 I 



SERMON I. 

The Place and Power ok 
Prayer in Evangelism, 



EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 



THE PLACE AND POWER OF PRAYER IN 
EVANGELISM. 

" But we will continue steadfastly in prayer, and in the ministry 
of the word." — Acts vi. 4. 

Prayer has a place, a prominent place, in all true 
evangelism ; it has a power, a divine power, there. In 
a meeting for the conversion of sinners there ought to 
be a surcharge of the spirit of prayer, and a great deal 
of praying ; prayerfulness on the part of all the disci- 
ples, and the utterance of many prayers in the course 
of the meeting. Prayer has its place and power in 
such gatherings, as it is meant to affect both saint and 
sinner. There should be praying for both the saved 
and the -unsaved. Indeed, it is the condition of the 
unsaved, their guilt, their misery, their crying needs, 
that makes a disciple pray not only for himself, but for 
himself in view of the sad condition of the unsaved, 
that the blessing of prayer on himself may, in God's 
providence, be linked to some good for the sheep that 
are still astray. Do we appreciate the place and power 
of prayer at such times? Each one of us, let him 
answer honestly — what are our convictions, our habits, 

our experiences, in this matter ? Do we feel like 

(9) 



10 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

praying — do we feel that we ought to pray — do we 
pray a great deal, in protracted meetings held for the 
conversion of sinners? Not only do we sing tender 
songs, inviting sinners to be saved; not only do we 
preach to sinners, exhorting them to be saved ; but do 
we pray for them, and concerning them, fervently and 
frequently, that they may be saved ? 

Let us make no mistakes. Indeed, I think that 
we need to learn a lesson, get our first light, from a 
quick look at two blunderings that often happen, one 
or the other, as to prayers in revival services. 

Here is one picture. A meeting is going on. It 
is a time of excitement — which is all right, if it be a 
healthy excitement. Crowds are in attendance nightly. 
Preacher and people are absorbed in the enthusiasm of 
saving souls. What at once strikes a reverent observer 
who is also thoughtful ? Why, praying seems to be 
the exercise to which everything else is not only subor- 
dinated, but sacrificed. There has been no sermon 
proper. No Scripture has been directly nor instruct- 
ively quoted. The Bible even lies unopened. The 
speaker took what he called a text — took it from 
memory — some imagery from the Old Testament ; and 
he shifts this in rapid lights to stir the feelings of his 
audience. He simply talks excitably and excitingly ; 
and at a certain pitch of emotion in himself and his 
hearers, he falls to praying. There are many prayers — 
one after the other. All the exhortation is to induce 
sinners to come and kneel at a certain place, or to 
stand where they are, and the praying goes on. There 
is no teaching a sinner to do anything with reference 
to his salvation. He is exhorted to expect to feel his 
salvation — to wait for that, while passively he calls on 



THE PLACE AND POWER OF PRAYER. I I 

the name of the Lord, and while the prayers of others 
also go up to God for his salvation. And what is a 
strange note, the dominant note, of all the praying? 
Why, it sounds altogether as if God's face was averted, 
and as if the great and only need just now is to get 
Him willing to save suppliant, helpless sinners, and to 
save them in some miraculous way with which neither 
preacher nor people have anything to do. 

That is one picture. It is an extreme one. But it 
is true to life, every line of it. It could have been 
seen in the old-fashioned camp-meetings of fifty years 
ago. It can be seen sometimes, during revivals, even 
in cities nowadays. It is one of the mistakes made 
concerning the place and power of prayer in evangel- 
istic meetings. It is a misuse of the place and power 
of prayer there. It can not stand the light of Apos_ 
tolic practice — " We will continue steadfastly in prayer, 
and in the ministry of the word'' — not only prayer, 
but the ministry of the Word — steadfast prayer, and 
steadfast ministry of the Word — praying and preaching 
together, in due proportion and power. 

Here is the other picture. A meeting is going on. 
There is no special excitement, though the attendance 
is encouraging as to numbers. There are enough sin- 
ners present to fire any true preacher with zeal in his 
work. What at once strikes the reverent observer 
who is also thoughtful? Why, preaching stems to be 
the exercise to which everything else is not only sub- 
ordinated, but sacrificed. There is some singing, a 
brief passage of Scripture is read, and there is one 
prayer of three or four minutes before the long ser- 
mon — the only prayer throughout that evening's 
meeting. What about the prayer strikes our thought- 



12 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

ful observer, is that it is rather general in view, and 
sounds mechanical. It addresses the throne of grace, 
and it implies a religious experience. But it lacks 
warmth, it lacks directness. It makes a slight refer- 
ence to the special object of the meeting, but in an 
indirect way, without awakening any responsive Amen 
in the hearts of the audience. The sermon took up 
nearly all the time. It was over an hour in length ; 
and it was a terrific onslaught on theological errors and 
heresies, and a parade of so-called logical laws and 
strictures. The logic of the sermon and the manner 
of the preacher were chiefly in the minds of the audi- 
ence — in the minds of those that listened. When 
the meeting adjourned one of the auditors was heard to 
remark: "That discourse was all sound." But there 
seemed to be in the meeting no burning desire for the 
salvation of sinners — no burning desire ; certainly no 
warm, direct prayer had been offered in their behalf. 

That is the other picture. It is an extreme one. 
But it is true to life, every line of it. It was seen in 
protracted meetings fifty years ago. It can be seen in 
protracted meetings to-day. It is the other mistake 
made concerning the place and power of prayer in 
evangelistic services. It is a lack of appreciation of 
the place and power of prayer there. It can not stand 
the light of Apostolic practice. u We will continue 
steadfastly in prayer, and in the ministry of the word" 
— not only the ministry of the Word, but prayer — 
steadfast ministry of the Word, and steadfast prayer — 
preaching and praying together, in due proportion and 
power. 

These are the two mistakes to be avoided. One of 
them is a misuse of prayer in protracted meetings. 



THE PLACE AND POWER OF PRAYER. 1 3 

The other is a lack of appreciation of its place and 
power there. But surely, according to God's Word, 
there is a place of prayer, a power of prayer, in all 
right work of saving sinners. What is this place ? 
How shall we know it ? What is the power ? How shall 
we realize it ? To the law and the testimony ! Let us 
speak according to this Word. 

What a large place prayer occupied in Paul's minis- 
try of the Gospel, and how he taught the duty of 
prayer for the unsaved ! For instance, we hear him 
exhorting Timothy to intercessory prayer. "I exhort 
therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, inter- 
cessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men." This 
is a mighty proof-text of the subject. Mark it. It is 
the widest range of praying, as the disciples of Jesus 
Christ count prayer. It is the prayer for humanity. 
It is the true universal prayer. It is prayer with every 
faculty — prayer with every feeling — prayer in every 
light — prayer from every reason — prayer with every 
note — prayer for every need — prayer for all good — 
such praying by a disciple of Christ, not only for him- 
self, but " for all men." Easily and logically does the 
Apostle show one of the applications of such a prayer. 
He exhorts, for instance, that it be made for "kings 
and all that are in high place; that we- may lead a 
tranquil and quiet life, in all godliness and gravity." 
Certainly. There is no leap in Paul's exhortation. 
There is no twisting of his doctrine, illogically, for a 
practical end. He is naturally and purposely indicating 
one of the needs of the Christian's universal prayer. 
The prayer for kings and governments lies right along 
in the light of the fullest and heartiest praying for 
mankind. There is a vital connection between salva- 



14 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

tion and civilization, between the Gospel and the peace 
of nations, between God in the Church and God in 
history. The very reason that Paul gives for this prayer 
shows it. Listen! "This is good and acceptable in 
the sight of God our Saviour ; who willeth that all men 
should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the 
truth." There it is. The sublime motive of prayer 
for all men is the reason of prayer for kings and a 
country's peace. The deep reason of prayer for kings 
and rulers is really the high reason of prayer for 
humanity — because God is Saviour, and wills that all 
men should be saved. There can be no true praying 
for all men, no true praying for anybody, no true ask- 
ing any blessing for them, that is not, first and last, 
also a prayer for their salvation in time and eternity. 
All these "supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanks- 
givings" — the universal prayer — have their full purpose 
and power as they bear on the redemption of all men. 
So the truth becomes more luminous still, as the 
Apostle goes on shedding the light of noble motives, 
adding reason to reason. "For there is one God, one 
mediator between God and men, himself man, Christ 
Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all ; the testimony 
to be borne in its own times." Prayer for all men, then, 
as Paul teaches and exhorts, we see its reason and pow- 
er in God's favor and mercy willing their salvation, in 
the mediation of Jesus Christ bringing their salvation, 
in the testimony of the Gospel proclaiming their salva- 
tion. 

What Paul taught and exhorted to, he also signal- 
ly practiced, concerning this world-wide prayer for 
others. " My heart's desire" — so he begins one of his 
own intercessions. His own heart is right before God. 



THE PLACE AND POWER OE PRAYER. 1 5 

No malice rankles there against the disobedient and 
gainsaying Jews, many of them dead set against him 
in vengeance. His heart is full of the spirit of Christ ; 
a desire burns deeply there. But it is not only a de- 
sire ; it is also a supplication, a passionate desire, a 
fervent supplication. " Brethren, my heart's desire and 
my supplication to God is for them, that they may be 
saved." It is plainly, beautifully, impressively Apos- 
tolic to pray for the unsaved. There is no doubt that 
in all Apostolic preaching of the Gospel there was a 
place, a large place, for prayer in behalf of sinners, 
prayer for their salvation, a large part of the praying 
in which the Apostles steadfastly continued while they 
steadfastly also preached the Word. 

But if prayer has a right place in protracted meet- 
ings ; if it be beautiful and acceptable in God's sight 
to pray for sinners, then what is the power of prayer ? 
How shall we pray ? What are scriptural prayers in a 
revival, as they may affect the saved and the unsaved ? 

Consider one of Paul's requests for prayer, as the 
answer bears on the success of the Gospel. He is ask- 
ing his Thessalonian converts to pray for him. "Fi- 
nally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the 
Lord may run and be glorified, even as it is also with 
you." Mark at once how that prayer for the success 
of the Gospel, for an untrammeled, glorious success of 
the Gospel, is bound up with prayer for the preacher 
of the Gospel. The figure is stirring. It represents 
the Gospel as a rapid runner along the course of life, 
exultant in the glory of its triumphs, radiant in the 
splendor of its victories. The Word of the Lord reigns 
and is glorified in the salvation of sinners. Paul, in re- 
questing this prayer, has not in mind some glittering 



1 6 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

generality that may mean everything or nothing. He 
wants prayer for a triumph of the Gospel, the like of 
which he saw afterwards in Ephesus, when sinners 
came, and confessed their sins, and burnt the tools of 
their evil practices, "so mightily grew the word of 
the Lord and prevailed." Mark, too, how that, in 
thus requesting the Thessalonians to pray for the suc- 
cess of the Gospel in the conversion of sinners, in- 
cluding himself in the prayer, he pointedly adds, "and 
that we may be delivered from unreasonable and evil 
men." What are the pith and point of this prayer? 
It is a prayer for the success of the Gospel in the con- 
version of sinners, the preacher included in the prayer 
— a prayer founded upon the conviction that God is liv- 
ing and present and powerful in providences that make 
such success of the Gospel possible, especially as He 
thwarts or overrules the antagonisms of evil men. 

Let us look at another request of Paul's for prayer. 
It is a request for prayer, as the answer to it bears on 
the value of opportunities in preaching the Gospel. 
He is asking the disciples of Colosse to pray for him. 
"Withal, praying for us also, that God may open a 
door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for 
which I am also in bonds." He is there in Rome, the 
prisoner of the Lord, dwelling in his own hired house, 
receiving all who come to him. He is anxious for the 
widest spread of the Gospel in the capital of the world. 
He himself prays that God may open a door for the 
Word. He requests others to pray the same. And 
the answer came. The Apostle tells the Philippians 
of the hand of God in opening the door for the Word 
in Rome. "Now I would have you know, brethren, 
that the things which happened unto me have fallen 



THE PLACE AND POWER OF PRAYER. \J 

out rather unto the progress of the Gospel ; so that my 
bonds became manifest throughout the whole praetor- 
ian guard, and to all the rest ; and that most of the 
brethren in the Lord, being confident through my 
bonds, are more abundantly bold to speak the word of 
God without fear." What are the pith and point of 
this prayer ? It is a prayer founded upon the conviction 
that God is living and present and powerful in provi- 
dences that open the way for the preaching of the Word. 

Look at the additional clause in the same request of 
the Colossians, combining it with the fuller statement 
of a like request of the Ephesians. "Praying at all 
seasons in the Spirit, and in my behalf, that utterance 
may be given unto me in opening my mouth, to make 
known with boldness the mystery of the Gospel, for 
which I am an embassador in chains ; that in it I may 
speak boldly, as I ought to speak." This subject of 
prayer, its place and power in efforts to save sinners 
by preaching the Gospel, is now seen to be a very per- 
sonal one for the preacher himself. It is the man Paul, 
of like nature with other men, now the prisoner of the 
Lord in the capital of the world, still having trouble 
with enemies and factious opponents, not feeling strong 
in himself, feeling the need to pray, asking others to 
pray for him, that he may have courage in preaching 
the Gospel, * ' that I may make it manifest, as I ought to 
speak." What are the pith and point of this prayer? 
It is a prayer founded upon the conviction that God 
is living and present and powerful in the souls of 
the ministers of His Word, to strengthen them and 
guide them in their service. 

What is the summary of this teaching of Scrip- 
ture ? Prayer has a prominent place and power 



1 8 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

in evangelistic meetings held for the salvation of 
sinners. It has a place and power there as affect- 
ing both the saved and the unsaved. It flows from 
a holy desire in the hearts of Christ's disciples 
that sinners may be saved. It flows out in fervent 
supplication that they may be saved. It prays for the 
presence and power of God in the providences of 
events, and in the consecration of his Church, accord- 
ing as these, in every possible way, facilitate the 
preaching of the Gospel to sinners. It is varied in 
spirit and style, thoughtful, trustful, fervent, as it as- 
cends to God for all men — for this and that class of 
men — for all men ; as it seeks, above every other bless- 
ing, that they may realize the eternal redemption ob- 
tained for them by Christ Jesus. It thus goes up to 
God, assured that such praying is beautiful and ac- 
ceptable in His sight, since especially He "willeth 
that all men should be saved, and come to the knowl- 
edge of the truth." 

Shall we pray during this series of meetings ? In- 
deed, let us pray often and fervently. Let us pray 
here in God's house, and in our own homes, and in 
the closet of our hearts during the day. But let us 
pray wisely, let us pray scripturally, according to the 
will of God. Surely we do not want to pray ignorant- 
ly nor presumptuously. We must not expect impos- 
sibilities nor absurdities. Is it right for us to pray 
that God will work a miracle in saving sinners, to the 
shock and surprise of the sinners themselves ? Is it 
scriptural for us to pray that God w r ill bring some pow- 
er to bear on them, apart from the Word of the truth 
of the Gospel, in some abstract, inexplicable way, 
which, with lightning rapidity, in some electric stir of 



THE PLACE AND POWER OF PRAYER. 



*9 



feeling, will assure them instantaneously then and there, 
once for all and forever, that they are pardoned and 
saved ? Is it the teaching of the Bible that a sinner 
must simply pray for himself, while others simply pray 
for him, he doing nothing else, preacher and people 
exhorting him to do nothing else, simply to pray and 
wait, and in this passive attitude to look for a peculiar 
emotion that will be the sign of his salvation ? Why, 
to ask those questions is immediately to answer no, 
in the light of God's Word. This is not the right use 
of prayer in efforts to save sinners. The Apostles did 
nothing of this kind. There is nothing like it in the 
Book of the Acts, the great book of conversions. 
Nowhere in it, from Peter's preaching in Jerusalem to 
Paul's preaching in Rome, in no conversion there re- 
corded, do we read that sinners were taught to stop 
on their knees, and to keep praying, to do nothing 
else but pray and wait, pray on, wait on, until they 
felt a certain sensation, and that this would be the as- 
surance that they were saved. 

I think that the sad history of this way of doing 
ought to arouse us all and keep us all from this 
dangerous error. It has made conversion a matter of 
uncertainty and long delay ; and in the Bible conversion 
is simple, clear, prompt, without waiting or wonder. 
It has kept inquiring sinners in agony and tears, vainly 
waiting for light ; and in the Bible every anxious sinner 
saw the Way as fast as his eyes could be pointed to 
the Way, and never had to wait in a torture of doubts 
and fears before he could be saved. It has misled 
sinners to trust to dreams and visions, to expect voices 
and marvelous experiences, to turn their eyes within 
and become absorbed in the fluctuation of their 



20 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

emotions, and to watch for a certain pitch or state of 
feeling where they could "get religion." Here has 
been the climax of danger and harm in this misuse of 
prayer for salvation. It has not only kept inquirers 
waiting, praying for a marvelous sense of pardon ; but 
often the result has been, when this excitement died 
away, that the poor sinner has become anxious again, 
and feels uncertain after all whether he was really saved. 
The salvation of the Gospel does not come in such an 
abuse of prayer. We may be sure that any prayer or 
prayers are wrong that make the salvation of the Gospel 
a thing of varying moods, not of clear-cut convictions — 
of fanciful visions, not of intelligent promises - — of 
praying alone, and not also of simple faith and 
prompt obedience. Steadfast in prayer and steadfast 
in preaching — that is the Apostolic bond. We dare not 
separate them. We dare not pray only, and tell the 
unsaved to pray only for their salvation. We dare not 
stop preaching, and neglect it, as if there were nothing 
in it as a message of duty for sinners, as well as of 
prayer for them, that they might be saved. 

We are to pray, then, while we preach. We are 
to pray scriptural prayers — prayers that do not slight 
nor stop the purpose, the power of preaching the 
Gospel, but prayers that agree with genuine Apostolic 
preaching, and help it to success in saving sinners. 
What a privilege we have in the prayers of this 
evangelistic meeting! Mark them. We may pray 
that God will take out of the way all hindering objects 
and causes. What are they ? How many are there ? 
Do you know them ? Do you know any ? Is there one 
in your own heart? Are you opposed to evangelistic 
meetings ? Do you sit back, and criticise them with a 



THE PLACE AND POWER OF PRAYER. 21 

would-be philosophical air? "Oh, what is the use of 
them, anyhow? Isn't there danger of too much ex- 
citement ? Won't they do more harm than good ? Why 
not just go along quietly and expect conversions at the 
regular services of the church ? " That is sometimes a 
high wall straight across the course of the Gospel. It 
is raised, alas ! too often in the hearts of church 
members who selfishly forget that they were saved in 
a protracted meeting. We must pray God to break 
down all those walls of hostility, opposition, indif- 
ference. It is the very first praying to do — prayers for 
ourselves to become more alive to the interests of 
sinners, to come regularly to these meeetings, to ar- 
range our business, set our times, order our steps, so 
that we shall be here, each one, every night, ready 
and glad for our part in this work of the Gospel. 

Perhaps the hindrance is plainer to see. It is your 
conduct that is wrong. The world sees it, and knows 
it — your swearing, your tippling, your trickery in 
trade, your bribery in politics. These stumbling-blocks 
in the lives of disciples — they stand out with lamentable 
prominence when a congregation begins a protracted 
meeting. They are pointed at by the sinner on the 
outside, who tries to excuse himself behind them as 
a hindrance to his own salvation. It is a time for 
church members to repent and pray for themselves. 
Certainly there can be no free course of the Word, if a 
church be worldly, given to frivolous amusements, spot- 
ted with immoralities, sometimes with a canker of mu- 
tual hatreds eating at its very heart. Here is the first 
prayer, not so much for deliverance from the talk and 
scoff of infidels, but from our own evil selves. Nay, no 
matter what the name of a congregation for purity and 



22 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

good works, the beginning of an evangelistic service 
ought to be a time of self-searching, repentance, prayer 
that the whole membership as one heart may be free 
from every obstacle in the way of the Gospel's power. 
It is a time for every disciple to pray humbly for him- 
self that neither in deed, nor in word, nor in thought, 
there be one hindrance to the Gospel's success. 

We may then well go on praying. Let us pray 
that God, in his providence, will open a door for the 
Word. A door here, a door there, door after door, 
many doors, innumerable doors; we may pray for 
them, we may expect them to swing open on all sides, 
if we watch as well as pray. It means the opportunity, 
in God's providence, the opportunity for the Spirit of 
truth to do its work in the heart and conscience. Pray 
for an opportunity of speech — that wise moment when 
one word of love and light will win your friend to the. 
Saviour. Pray for an opportunity of example, some 
self-control, some beauty of character which breathes 
the very spirit of religion, whose influence brings the 
heart irresistibly to believe and obey. Pray for an op- 
portunity of self-sacrifice, sincere, genuine, which others 
may see, who straightway glorify God. Let us pray that 
the Lord may see fit to use each one of us, in some way, 
as a channel of His grace and power in behalf of sinners. 
We can not pray too much for these open doors. They 
are of all kinds, everywhere in human life, according as 
the providence of God opens them for the Word. It 
has sometimes been the touch of a little daughter's 
hand on her father's, her gentle voice begging him to 
go with her and confess Christ. It may be a sweet 
Gospel song, charming the listener with the story of 
the Cross. Occasionally has a royal day of happi- 



THE PLACE AND POWER OF PRAYER. 23 

ness, with the very seal of Heaven upon it, opened the 
heart to give heed to the Gospel's call. More often 
has the day of trial, a reversal of fortune, a time of sick- 
ness, a new-made grave, silently opened the door, and 
the soul has been saved. The living, direct exhorta- 
tion, in tears and love, reaches the conscience, or the 
memory of a far-off appeal from lips long hushed in 
death, has its perfect work, and the Word is glorified. 
In the very spirit and manner of Paul, let us pray that 
God may open unto us a door for the Word. 

Do not forget the special prayer for the preacher. 
That is according to Paul, too. He needed the blessing 
of prayer in his ministry. Certainly we need it. 
We, too, need wisdom of speech, courage of speech, 
a consecration of mind and heart in this daily 
evangelism. We need to be strengthened mightily 
through the Spirit in the inv/ard man. Pray that we 
may have the spirit, not of fearfulness, but of power 
and love and discipline. We can not, we dare not pre- 
sume to work alone. We are not sufficient of our- 
selves. The burden is too great for any mortal man 
to bear by himself. It is the wildest presumption for 
any preacher to think that it is just a matter of glibness 
of speech, or logical skill, or heated anecdotes, or revi- 
val racket, to save men. Preach the Gospel as we 
must, human lips allowed and consecrated to tell the 
way of salvation, we must pray also. The spirit, the 
atmosphere, the tone of this meeting will be decided 
according to your and my prayers. 

It means that we, the saved, preachers and all, are 
dependent on God. We are fellow-workers with God 
in saving sinners by preaching. One may plant, an- 
other may water ; God gives the increase. This sub- 



24 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

lime service of preaching the Gospel to the unsaved 
we can duly do only in Him that strengthens us. The 
secret of our work is that it is God working in us and 
through us. It does not take away our responsibility 
to preach and exhort. It does not relieve the sinner 
of his responsibility to hear and obey. Nay, the fact 
of the presence and power of the Spirit of God in " the 
word of the truth of the gospel" but intensifies this 
responsibility. In the light of an intelligent faith, it 
causes both saint and sinner to feel more deeply the 
awful reality of things unseen. There is no confusion 
here. There is no mysticism. There is no miracle. 
There is not one hint of a power that will save sinners 
separately and apart altogether from the Gospel, with- 
out any reference to their attitude toward the Gospel. 
It is the grand and encouraging fact of the presence 
and power of God in all true preaching of the Gospel. 
It is His Word ; it is His truth ; His presence and 
power are in it. It is the promise of the risen Christ : 
" Lo, I am with you all the days, even unto the end of 
the world." 

Indeed let us pray much in this protracted meet- 
ing — much prayerfulness, many prayers — in the light 
that the Scriptures shed. Let us continue steadfastly 
in prayer and in the ministry of the Gospel. As we 
sing and preach and exhort, let the spirit of prayer 
pervade it all. Let it be our firm faith that God is 
living, and present, and powerful in providences that 
will open door after door for the Word to enter the 
sinner's heart. Let it be our firm faith that God is 
living, and present, and powerful in the consecration 
of his people to such work in saving sinners. In pray- 
ing for these providences and for this consecration, in 



THE PLACE AND POWER OF PRAYER. 25 

the presence and power of God, let us thus be praying 
for the unsaved, while preaching to them, as the 
Apostles preached, what they must do to be saved. 
Let us fully appreciate the place and power of prayer 
in evangelism. 



SERMON II. 

HEARING THE GOSPEL. 



II. 

HEARING THE GOSPEL. 

"Hear, and your soul shall live. " — Isa. Iv. j. 

A simple duty, is it not? But it may be the begin- 
ning of your salvation. Nay, in this duty of hearing, 
in the Bible sense of both hearing and heeding, there 
may be wrapt up the fullness of the blessing of Christ. 
It is, indeed, just this simple : that, first of all, where 
you sit, coming hither from night to night, you are 
exhorted to hear the Gospel; and it is just this full of 
blessing that, if you hear according to the Word of 
God, your soul shall live. We want to emphasize the 
old prophet's exhortation this second evening of these 
evangelistic services. So much depends on hearing. 
Whatever more of duty is preached to you, must grow 
out of this note of the Gospel. Whatever further step 
you take in the Way of salvation, must have before it 
this first step of hearing. There is the luminous 
promise — "Your soul shall live." To realize it, there 
is the need of doing what Isaiah exhorts us to do — 
"Hear." 

It is a continuous and an emphatic note in the 

Bible. It comes in so many times, and in so many 

ways — now with a warning, now with a promise, then 

a climax of doctrine, then a picture of danger, often 

a Scripture of rational argument or precept, always 

a deep-toned voice in the ear and heart of man for 

(29) 



30 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

responsibility under God's judgment. "The hour 
cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the 
voice of the Son of God " — there is a sublime stroke of 
the Gospel's power to wake man up to a sense of his 
obligation to God ; and the simple duty and the rich 
promise are coupled by the lips of Jesus — ''and they 
that hear shall live." "Now when they heard this, 
they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter 
and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we 
do?" It is a scene in real life. The sword of the 
Spirit was puncturing the consciences of a crowd of 
sinners ; it was done as they heard the Apostle's home- 
thrust proofs of the authority of Christ, the risen Lord. 
Such a duty of hearing, such a way of doing it, was 
once a chain of logic under Paul's pen. "Whosoever 
shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved. 
How then shall they call on him in whom they have 
not believed ? and how shall they believe in him whom 
they have not heard ? and how shall they hear, without 
a preacher ? and how shall they preach except they be 
sent?" And the Apostle draws a conclusion that 
stands forever as a shining proof-text of the origin of 
faith, against all revival mysticisms of doctrine : "So 
belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of 
Christ. " Such a duty of hearing, the tremendous 
consequences of hearing, were once vividly pictured 
by the Master : ' ' Every one therefore which heareth 
these words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened 
unto a wise man, which built his house upon the rock : 
and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the 
winds blew, and beat upon that house ; and it fell not : 
for it was founded upon the rock. And every one that 
heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, shall 



HEARING THE GOSPEL. 3 1 

be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house 
upon the sand : and the rain descended, and the floods 
came, and the winds blew, and smote upon that house: 
and it fell ; and great was the fall thereof." 

This is not a hundreth part of the Scriptures that 
variedly sound the responsibility of hearing, the urgent 
responsibility, and the tremendous consequences. 
Every time, each one of these Scriptures by itself, all 
of them put together, spell the truth that salvation is 
something, first of all, to be heard. It is the voice of 
a herald. It is a message of good tidings. Need I 
stop to disprove the old-fashioned revival doctrine that 
a sinner is a dead quantity, so dead in sins that he can 
not hear? Must I take pains to elaborate Paul's teach- 
ing that faith comes of hearing, and hearing by the 
Word of Christ ? Surely the old notion is well-nigh 
defunct which threw a slur on what it called "book- 
religion," "religion learned from what a man says," 
"religion taught by speakers." Following the Word 
of God, we must see that upon every unsaved man 
there rests the responsibility to hear the Gospel. He 
can hear it ; he must hear it ; he is to be exhorted to 
hear it. That responsibility does not imply the 
absence of any influences of God as one hears. God 
is not shut out by the fact of the preacher's exhorting 
and warning the sinner to hear. The Gospel is the 
power of God unto salvation. The power of God is in 
the Gospel, in the facts, the precepts, the promises of 
the Gospel — always there, never absent, ever present 
and making for the salvation of every believer. The 
Word of God is the sword of the Spirit. It is never 
less than the Spirit's sword, living, active, sharper and 
more penetrating than a Damascene blade, and quick 



32 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. How 
unreasonable to conclude that, because sinners are 
exhorted to hear before they are saved, before they 
can be saved, exhorted to hear in order that they may 
be saved, therefore a slight is cast upon the grace and 
glory of God ! By no means. The responsibility of 
hearing is in view of the very grace of God enabling 
sinners to hear. The Gospel is the voice of the Son 
of God, a word of light and love, a word of warning, a 
word of promise ; a word to be preached in faith and 
love ; and all this divineness of it, the power of God, 
the grace of God, the love of God, creates, intensifies, 
irresistibly enforces the whole question of the respon- 
sibility of hearing the Gospel. 

I It is not such a simple matter as one might sup. 
pose. The sinner must hear; but before he can hear, 
the Gospel must have been brought to his ears. i( How 
shall they hear without a preacher ? " It is not enough 
that this is Christendom ; not enough that the Word 
generally prevails; not enough that Bibles are pub. 
lished annually by the millions, and a copy offered 
gratis to every destitute individual or family; not 
enough that chapels are built, and pulpits supplied, 
and pews left open and free ; not enough that a con- 
gregation publishes a standing invitation for the people 
to come and hear. There is a duty for the Church of 
God to send the Gospel to the heathen who have 
never heard it nor heard of it. There is just as urgent 
a duty for the Church of God, within the bounds of 
Christendom, to send, to carry the Gospel to those 
who, while they may have heard of it, have never 
heard it, and do not hear it. 

This is true in more ways than one : that while the 



HEARING THE GOSPEL. 33 

sinner must hear in order that his soul may live, the 
Church must first bring the Gospel to his ears. In 
many a rural village or neighborhood it may be true 
that every resident, in his life-time, has both heard of 
the Gospel and directly heard it. But in many a huge 
and crowded city this is not always the fact. The con- 
trary fact has become so plain, and so appalling, in 
this generation, that it has sprung a dark problem of 
duty upon the followers of Christ. " How can we 
save the masses ?" — " How can we win the non-church- 
goer?" — "How can we reach the vast numbers of 
children still outside of the Sunday-school?" — so the 
distressing questions are heard amid the chimes of 
the church bells, and the songs of praise in worshiping 
assemblies. It is the glaring fact that, if multitudes 
should suddenly desire or conclude to go to church 
some Lord's day morning or evening, there is not room 
enough to seat them — not in London, nor in New 
York, nor in Chicago, nor here in Lexington. It is 
the glaring fact, for instance in New York, that the 
population is thinnest in the wards where churches are 
thickest, and that the population is thickest in the 
wards where churches are thinnest. Lofty spires do 
not rise one after another, in their silent beauty of tes- 
timony, amid the crowded tenement houses. Sanctuary 
after sanctuary, breathing comfort and rest with the 
presence of God, does not stand invitingly open here, 
there, again, as men, women, and little children swarm 
by tens of thousands in territory a mile 'square. There 
they are, huddled together without churches, away from 
churches, never hearing the Gospel, and becoming more 
and more, as the statesman fears, a dangerous class in 
their poverty, discontent, despair — a veritable menace 



34 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

to the peace of a Christian civilization. In no real 
sense do they hear the Gospel. Must the truth be told 
to our shame that, in no real sense, do they hear the 
Gospel, because of the Church's neglect to bring it to 
their ears? It is the problem of city evangelization. 
How shall our cities be evangelized? — the cry is raised, 
showing a new, strange depth of duty in the Great 
Commission. "Go ye into all the world," said the 
Master ; and, in one light, there is not far to go : a 
teeming world is near by our door, under our eye, 
almost within sound of- our voice, a world that close 
which has never been wholly evangelized. " He that 
believeth and is baptized, ' ' said the Master ; and Paul's 
logic becomes a fire of rebuke to hundreds of churches 
for their neglect of the children of God scattered in 
alleys and slums — " How shall they believe in him 
whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear 
without a preacher ? and how shall they preach except 
they be sent?" 

That is one of the lights in which the duty first 
shines for the Church of God, on its part, to see that 
the Gospel is brought to the sinner's ears, that he may 
hear and be saved. But this duty of the Church shines 
in another direction, toward another unevangelized 
part of humanity. Who are they? They are a larger 
number than we may have supposed. They are not 
paupers. They are not in want. They are not all 
struggling in the dark to make a living. They are by 
no means universally involved as a class or classes in 
the problems of socialism. More generally they feel 
sure of their self-sufficiency as individuals. But they 
do not go to church. They make up an army of non- 
church-goers. Many a time he is an honest, sober, 



HEARING THE GOSPEL. 35 

industrious mechanic — but he does not attend church. 
Often he is a prosperous merchant — but he does not 
attend church. Too frequently, alas ! he is a young 
man, beginning his life work, fired with the ambitions 
of some worldly success — but he does not attend 
church. They make a large number when all counted 
together. All of them have heard of the Gospel. 
Most all of them have so heard it as to know their re- 
sponsibility under it. But they do not hear it any 
longer. 

I proclaim to-night the duty of Christians toward 
both of these classes. I proclaim our duty to these 
fellow-men who do not hear the Gospel. If, after we 
have done our duty, they will not hear, but straightout 
refuse to hear, then we may sorrowfully say, ' ' Your 
blood be upon your own heads ; our consciences are 
clean." Our duty to these classes — it is the same 
toward both. It is the same simple duty to both, 
whether one be Lazarus, and the other Dives; whether 
one be a poor, sick beggar, and the other a rich fool. 
The same simple duty — so I mean it and emphasize it. 
It is the duty of going to all these non- church-goers 
as men, and dealing with them as men — not as rich 
nor poor, not as high nor low, not as miserable nor 
comfortable, not as cowed nor self-sufficient, but di- 
rectly and primarily as fellow-men for whom Christ 
died. Let us have less and less of this talk about 
"masses" and "classes," in any exclusive significa- 
tions. I know, on the one hand, there are problems 
of poverty and labor intricately connected with the 
evangelization of our cities. I am just as sure, on the 
other hand, it is just as serious a matter to be doing 
our duty to evangelize an immense number that are 



36 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

practically at ease on matters of a livelihood. You may 
say that thousands of our fellow-creatures need some- 
thing besides Gospel revivals. You yourself know 
that they need something more than soup-houses ; and 
you know that there are far more of our fellows that 
have bread enough, and to spare, who need rather to 
hear the old truth, " Man shall not live by bread alone. " 
It cannot be denied that evangelism often necessarily 
means, both in heathendom and Christendom, both in 
Bilaspur and Lexington, feeding the hungry, medicat- 
ing the sick, teaching the ignorant equally letters and 
morals, truly civilizing them while evangelizing them, 
Let us all honestly and plainly see the need of more 
legislation, the need of more education, the need of 
mightier and wiser organization, that this human life, 
between the cradle and the grave, may be made more 
tolerable for swarms of God 's creatures. But the 
Gospel of the glory of God, the Gospel of Christ and 
Him crucified, the Gospel of light and love, this 
Gospel not for ".masses" nor for "classes," but for 
" the whole creation," for a man as such, for a woman 
as such, for a child as such, each one duly and respon- 
sibly hearing it for himself and herself; deeper than 
any fact of environment, more than a match for any 
condition of society, the beacon for every step of 
progress in civilization afterwards, as it regenerates the 
individual and reforms the world — this is the Apostolic 
standard of truth and victory, set up in the wilds of 
Galatia, on the Areopagus in Athens, amid the hovels 
in Corinth, in Caesar's household in Rome. 

Our duty is plain enough — what we have to do that 
the unevangelized of this city may hear the Word of 
life. It is duty so far that we hold these special serv- 



HEARING THE GOSPEL. 37 

ices every night, here in the Lord's house, in this old 
historic building, so accessibly situated, so roomy ; 
here, the pews always free, a cordial invitation extended 
to all. We have a right to expect it, we shall not be 
disappointed, that many will be drawn hither, assured 
of a welcome, glad to hear the sweet songs of Zion, 
and feeling unmistakably the presence ot the Holy 
Spirit in light and love. You are already in attend- 
ance, many of you, to whom the voice may be imper- 
atively spoken — " Hear, and your soul shall live. " We 
may thank God for such a large audience, and take 
courage. But more, alas ! more, far, far more are on 
the outside. They do not care that they may hear. 
They do not care to come. They roam the streets. 
They gossip in idle crowds. They frequent saloons 
and gambling hells. They ply their trades amid the 
cares of this world. Or, what is so sad, a stern re- 
minder to you and me, many are sick, poor, burdened, 
ill-clad, cast down, helpless and hopeless : it would be 
a miracle of courage for them to come and hear. We 
must go to all these. We must go, on the outside to 
those that do not come to us. The Master speaks the 
duty for us to go out and constrain such to come in. 
The Gospel is for the public assembly ; the Gospel is 
for the individual by the wayside. In the highways 
and hedges, from house to house, warning every man, 
teaching every man — I hold up this manner of Christ, 
this Apostolic manner, not in the spirit of cant, not as 
a rhetorical flourish to ease our consciences, but as a 
picture for duty, an appeal for duty, in this evangel- 
istic work. We can do it, if we will. Here, night 
after night, publicly ; everywhere, day after day, pri- 
vately — so let the good work be done. Will you do 



38 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

your duty ? Will you ? Will you ? Do not exhort 
officially. Do not speak patronizingly. Pray for the 
opportunity. Pray for wisdom. Pray for courage. 
Do you go to that bed-ridden sinner in sympathy and 
cheer; and you to that wayward youth ; and you to 
that careless neighbor ; and you to that skeptical part- 
ner in business ; and you to your own son and daughter ; 
and you to your own husband : let us all consecrate 
ourselves before God for some such special mission and 
message, to tell the Gospel story to those that do not 
hear it, or to win them hither that they may hear it. 
Let us never doubt but God will guide us. He will 
open the way. He will bless us in our purpose, if 
first need be to make us better in life, an example for 
that one to whom we long and pray to speak. 

When, however, the people have come together, 
if not as the city of Antioch came in Paul's day, to 
hear the Word of God, almost the whole city, yet a 
house full as we behold to-night, there arises another 
signal duty in regard to the prophet's exhortation. 
We are to be careful that nothing is done that will 
hinder or obstruct the possibility of the sinner's hearing 
the Gospel. The methods of evangelism, general and 
special, in idea and detail — not one of them must be 
allowed to dull the ears of the sinner under the Gospel's 
message ; every one of them must be made to help him 
to hear his need of salvation, and to feel his responsi- 
bility to accept the invitation of the Saviour. Have 
we not all seen obstructive methods used in revival ser- 
vices — of course, not purposely used, yet the practical 
effect just that, sadly enough ? The effect was to make 
the sinner quiescent, passive ; and if he was exhorted 
to do anything, it was to do everything but respons- 



HEARING THE GOSPEL. 39 

ibly hear and heed the Gospel. The phrases current 
in such a revival indicate the methods. " Altar exer- 
cises, " "mourner's bench, " "anxious seat" — so the 
phrases run. The sinner has been invited to kneel 
night after night at the altar for prayer, and for nothing 
but prayer. He has taken his place regularly among 
the company of mourners, and steadily, genuinely 
mourning, still has not been comforted. He has been 
exhorted to come to the anxious seat, that he may 
show his great anxiety for salvation. Such methods, 
applied, repeated, filling most of the time in a service, 
have blurred or ignored the duty, the especial, distinct 
duty of men to hear the Gospel, their immediate re- 
sponsibility to hear what the Spirit of truth has to say 
unto them. And the methods go on multiplying, 
branching off this way or that way, sometimes becom- 
ing almost trifles, undignified, unworthy of the Gospel, 
marring its beauty, totally silencing its appeal to the 
heart and conscience. 

The scholarly and orthodox Phelps, of Andover, 
instructing preachers, trenchantly criticises these re- 
vival customs. He calls them "trivialities," "acts 
of religious substitution," "deceptive substitutions." 
He shows that the danger of them is to get men into 
the habit of regarding as duties customs that block 
the way to the great duty of deciding for eternal life. 
He is right. The more we see of these revival methods, 
in the light of Apostolic conversions, the more it 
appears that they hinder, delay, very often help not one 
step the power of the Gospel to convict and convert. 
What good is done by simply asking persons to arise 
who "desire to go to Heaven when they die " ? Is it 
not time lost, requesting "all that wish success in the 



40 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

protracted meeting," to come forward and give the 
preachers a hand of good-will? How does it help on 
the salvation of anyone by urging him, if he wants to 
be saved, to hold up his right hand ? Why should we 
stop over with inviting persons, vaguely and indefinitely, 
if they would ''like to have the prayers of God's 
people," to send in the name on a written request? 

Phelps well and wisely urges ' ' Apostolic policy in 
the conduct of revivals/' as against these "indetermi- 
nate acts," "acts of apparent self-commital, " "acts 
which fall short of God's requirements." This does not 
mean, in a hard and fast sense, that we may not have, 
in evangelistic meetings, expedients nor customs not 
used by the Apostles. More expedients and customs 
different from theirs we may have, in the large, wise lib- 
erty of the Gospel. The power of the Gospel is not 
so bound. But it does mean that every custom, expe- 
dient, method, usage, manner, all must have the spirit 
and purpose of the Gospel in them. That grave pur- 
pose makes for the conviction of men as they hear, 
believe, repent, obey. So was Apostolic preaching. 
So were Apostolic conversions. Such was "Apostolic 
policy in the conduct of revivals. " The Apostles said 
nothing, advised nothing, did nothing that would blur 
the free invitation of the Gospel to all — nothing that 
kept them from pressing the Gospel home on the sin- 
ner's heart, to convict him then and there of his need 
of salvation, and of his responsibility to accept it im- 
mediately on the promises of God's grace. This was 
the first need of humanity, the first note of the Apos- 
tolic Gospel. " Ye men of Israel, hear these words " — 
such was Peter's prime exhortation on the remarkable 
day of Pentecost. "God made choice among you, 



HEARING THE GOSPEL. 4T 

that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of 
the Gospel, and believe" — such was Peter's story of the 
conversion of Gentiles. 

We are going to walk in this light, we are going to 
work to this end, throughout this series of meetings. 
" Hear, and your soul shall live " — here is the begin- 
ning of duty, and here is the fullness of blessing. What 
comes in between, whatever is said, known, felt, done, 
everything must point and lead straight from the duty 
to the blessing. There must be no asides, no delays, 
no interruptions, no time taken up in " indeterminate 
acts," nothing that will not urge the love of God as it 
makes the sinner responsible to accept immediately a 
salvation of grace. Certainly while we preach, and 
while you are exhorted to hear, we shall pray. Oh ! 
yes, this is the work of God. We are co-workers with 
Him. We depend on Him for strength, guidance, 
consecration. We shall pray — pray often, pray fer- 
vently, for all : for you, and for ourselves. But we 
shall not make prayer an obstruction. We shall 
not, we dare not, pray that God will save you by 
a miracle, apart from the Gospel, before you hear 
it and without your hearing it. We shall pray for 
His providences, for every grace needed to open a 
door that the Gospel may win your ear and. con- 
vert your heart. We shall sing for your salvation — 
sing the Gospel, that its light and love may be music in 
your soul, persuading you to come to the Saviour with- 
out delay. We shall be ready to help you in any special 
manner — if you have any special inquiries to make con- 
cerning the Way, if there are particular doubts that 
need to be dissolved, if there are trials in your life that 
call for instruction and prayer. But, mark it ! any and 



42 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

all of these various methods must agree and work with 
the prime standard, the Gospel preached, heard, be- 
lieved, obeyed. In the Gospel is the power of God; 
in the Gospel is the sword of the Spirit. Prayer, song, 
inquiry, hearing, counsel, study, guidance — all of them 
are under the Gospel of the grace of God, as it is 
preached to guilty sinners, as they are responsible for 
hearing it and accepting it, to their salvation. 

All of this is plain, is it not ? Is it not the truth ? 
Is it not at once scriptural and reasonable ? Is it not 
as beautiful as it is reasonable, this Way of salvation 
opening clearly before our eyes? Behold, then, your 
responsibility, just as clear and reasonable. It is two- 
fold. ■ * Take heed what ye hear' ' — ' ' Take heed there- 
fore how ye hear." What you hear — how you hear. 
You want to hear the Word ; not the traditions of the 
schools, but the truth; not the doctrines and com- 
mandments of men, but the Gospel. You want to hear 
" the word of the truth of the Gospel," as Paul sum- 
marily describes it. It is a Gospel of light — "I am 
the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not 
walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life." 
It is a Gospel of love — "God commendeth his own 
love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, 
Christ died for us." It is a Gospel of grace — "Justi- 
fied freely by his grace through the redemption that is 
in Christ Jesus. " It is a Gospel of truth — "These 
[signs] are written that ye may believe that Jesus is 
the Christ, the Son of God." It is a Gospel of facts — 
"For I delivered unto you first of all that which also 
I received, how that Christ died for our sins according 
to the scriptures ; and that he was buried ; and that he 
hath been raised again the third day according to the 



HEARING THE GOSPEL. 43 

scriptures." It is a Gospel of universality — "Go ye 
into all the world, and preach the Gospel to the whole 
creation.'' It is a Gospel of precepts — ''He that be- 
lieveth and is baptized shall be saved." It is a Gospel 
of promises — "Repent ye, and be baptized every one 
of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission 
of your sins ; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy 
Spirit." It is a Gospel of character — " Let your man- 
ner of life be worthy of the Gospel of Christ." 

This is the Gospel to be heard and preached during 
this meeting. It is what every sinner ought to hear in 
every evangelistic service. It is what you have a right 
to hear, and what you ought to see that you do hear 
— a clear Gospel, not clouded ; a definite Gospel, not 
vague; a complete Gospel, not emasculated; a Gospel 
of life, not of frigid dogma or rigid system. As you 
hear, you can think and judge for yourself, responsible 
to God alone. The Gospel of His glory, it is for the 
the good of man. Coming from Him, it is a Gospel of 
love and grace; and just as surely, meant for you and 
me, it is a Gospel of facts, precepts, promises — facts 
for us to believe, precepts for us to obey, promises for 
us to enjoy. And would we have a Scripture, a clear, 
broad, beautiful Scripture, in whose depths this Gospel 
of glory shines, its light and beauty unshaded by a 
single cloud, undisturbed by a single ripple, here it is: 
"For the grace of God hath appeared, bringing salva- 
tion to all men, instructing us, to the intent that, 
denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live 
soberly and righteously and godly in this present world, 
looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the 
glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ ; who 
gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all 



44 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

iniquity, and purify unto himself a people for his own 
possession, zealous of good works." 

"Take heed what ye hear," but just as duly "Take 
heed how ye hear." You are to listen and learn while 
you hear. Hearing the Gospel is no thoughtless, irre- 
sponsible impression of catch-words and sepulchral 
tones. Salvation does not seize upon a man unknow- 
ingly, to his own surprise. I repeat, you are to listen 
and learn while you hear. Attention, judgment, 
knowledge, be sure, are involved in one's salvation. 
The influence of God, too — indeed, indeed so ; let 
let us not forget it once in this meeting. "No man 
can come to me, except the Father which sent me draw 
him" — it is Christ's own word. Those drawings of 
God, sweet, gentle, ceaseless — how blessed to know 
and feel them ! And hear how he draws us! " It is 
written in the prophets, And they shall all be taught 
of God. Every one that hath heard from the Father, 
and hath learned, cometh unto me." Hearing, listen- 
ing — hearing so attentively that you intelligently learn 
the Way — then are you taking heed how you hear as 
well as what you hear. Keep on hearing, I beg you. 
Do not listen just once, and then go your way, not to 
return. Do not hear, as the Holy Spirit strives with 
you, and guiltily resist His strivings. Keep on hearing. 
Learn truth after truth. See light after light. Receive 
the inflow of God's love in your heart. Yield, turn, 
follow wherever your Saviour leads. So hearing, your 
soul shall live. 



SERMON III. 

REPENTANCE. 



III. 

REPENTANCE. 

" And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached 
in his name unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem." — Luke 
xxiv. 47. 

In all true evangelistic preaching, the Way of salva- 
tion ought to appear clearer and clearer with every 
sermon. This is a capital note of these meetings, the 
clearness of the Way, to be heard over and over. No 
one should be left ignorant nor inquiring. All uncer- 
tainty should be dissipated. Every doubt should be 
dissolved. The light of the Gospel should be an un- 
clouded light for the sinner's anxiety and need. And 
all the time, too, in showing this clear way, we shall 
be impressed by another remarkable fact, if we preach 
the Gospel as the Apostles preached it. The clearness 
of salvation and the motives of salvation go impress- 
ively together. The Gospel shows the sinner, not 
only what he must do to be saved, but why he should 
do it, and how he must do it. The Gospel is the power 
of God unto salvation, because it is both light and mo- 
tive ; its light and motive are verily the power of God. 

Here it is, unmistakably: " Repentance and remis- 
sion of sins" — there is the duty of the sinner, and there 
is the blessing for him. So were duty and blessing 
preached by the Apostles, beginning from Jerusalem 
on that notable day of Pentecost. The duty was clear, 

the blessing was immediately ready. But read on,. 

(47) 



48 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

"Should be preached in his name." There is the mo- 
tive of it all. It is a Gospel for both head and heart. 
There is light for man's ignorance, and there is strength 
for man's weakness. The commandment of God is pro- 
claimed to man, "that they should all everywhere re- 
pent." But it is no cold, abstract commandment of 
duty, terrifying the sinner's heart, and leaving him 
cowed and helpless, to repent as best he can. The 
light of man's duty shines in the larger light of God's 
love, and the truth falls gently upon the heart: "The 
goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance." 

All this we want to hear and hold together this 
evening. "Repentance and remission of sins, " — the 
duty and the blessing; but " in his name" — the mo- 
tive. The more deeply you feel your responsibility 
to repent, the more keenly will you feel your need of 
the name of Christ, to repent thoroughly and savingly. 
Surely what we all desire here to-night is sincerity of 
purpose and deed. It is no time for hasty action. Sur- 
face work will not answer. Gospel repentance is no 
light matter. You do not want to be deceived, nor 
misled, nor kept waiting in doubt ; but certainly you 
do not want to repent in a half-hearted, impulsive way. 
It is, indeed, something strangely pathetic — these way- 
ward, these feeble desires to be better. I might ask 
the question, in genuine sympathy, Do you not want 
to be a better man ? a better woman ? a better child ? 
And I am sure that heart after heart would stir with a 
tiny flame anyhow; bruised and battered lives would 
look around and move a little ; even downright wicked 
persons might stop and listen for a moment. But if 
repentance is to have its perfect work, it must be in the 
name of Jesus Christ. Nothing short of that name, 



REPENTANCE. 49 

its light, its character, its power, its authority, can 
make you and me repent soundly. Gospel repentance 
is something far more than chance desires of being good. 
It is something surer than just swearing off from sin now 
and then, and afterwards wallowing in the mire more 
filthily than ever. It is something happier and brighter 
than cold, stoical efforts to cure our faults by ourselves, 
without any concern for the evil that lurks away down 
secretly in the depths of our hearts. 

The history of missions will make this clear to us. 
More than a hundred years ago the Moravian mission- 
aries, in their, work of faith and toil of love, landed 
among the icy mountains of Greenland. There they 
preached — what? Honest, devoted men of God, they 
thought that they were preaching as they ought to 
preach. They thought that a sinner, a heathen, needed 
to hear not the Gospel first, but the Law. The Law 
must first convict him of sin, and slay him ; and then 
he would be ready to hear the Gospel of salvation. Not 
Christ first, but Moses — not Calvary, but Sinai, was 
the order. They thought that only by the Law could 
come at all the knowledge of sin. So they preached ; 
and the more they so preached, proclaiming only the 
Law of righteousness and its voice of condemnation 
for every transgressor, the more they wondered at the 
result. The Greenlanders acknowledged their sins; 
but the acknowledgment ? Somehow it lacked depth, 
warmth, tears. There was no broken heart, no con- 
trite spirit. The poor heathen saw that he had not 
always done right, so his conscience accused him ; and 
he saw that he needed to be better. But he did not 
see the need deeply, searchingly, thoroughly. There 
was no upheaval of life in him. He was not moved, 



50 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

intelligently and powerfully moved, to repent. One 
day one of them entered the hut of a missionary, where 
the latter was translating the Bible. The Scripture was 
the story of the crucifixion of the Saviour. When the 
Greenlander curiously inquired what was going on, the 
preacher, from some cause, began to read the story of 
the Cross, and to tell its meaning. Strange to say, 
and yet not strange to say, a human heart was touched 
— the fountain of tears was broken up — again a mortal 
man could see Christ openly set forth crucified — again 
a sinner could say, "He died for me; " and there was 
great joy in Greenland. 

When Jesus Christ said that repentance should be 
preached in His name, He meant it. His name is the 
only reason and power that can cause one to repent 
radically and thoroughly. The Cross is the light for 
us all to behold sin in, and for us to study our own 
sins by. The background of our guilt looks all the 
darker around the pure life and precious self-sacrifice 
of the Son of God. The thunder of Sinai is not as power- 
ful to convict us of sin as the silent suffering of Cal- 
vary. "In his name" — not in the name of Moses — 
so the Apostles preached, and so God granted repent- 
ance unto life. The Gospel as fulfilling the righteous- 
ness of the Law; God commending His own love to us 
in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; 
the grace of God bringing salvation to all men, and 
teaching self-denial and a new life — these are the con- 
stant notes of the New Covenant, both to Jew and 
Gentile. Let us see more and more how it is that the 
name of Christ works this deep and genuine repentance, 
along with the remission of sins. 

What, then, is repentance, and how much is it, in 



REPENTANCE. 5 1 

the name of Christ ? What is it that you feel and do 
in repenting ? What is it as truth in Scripture and as 
experience in life ? We need not wonder that, if a 
popular definition of it were called for, an answer would 
be loosely given that it is sorrow for sin. Well, there 
can be no repentance without sorrow for sin. That is 
very true. But you might be sorry for your sins and 
yet not repent. You might sorrow for a long time, 
and keenly, and yet not repent. You might shed riv- 
ers of tears, and yet not repent. You might grieve 
over your wrong-doing, until your heart ached, and 
you were driven almost distracted, and yet not repent. 
You might feel wounded and sore and unspeakably sad, 
in a dumb agony of regret, and yet not repent. Your 
sins might arise before you and torment your conscience, 
and bring you heavy days and sleepless nights, and 
still there might never be repentance. 

This is altogether intelligible. It is true in God's 
Word, and it is true in life. Listen ! One of the most 
solemn phrases of the Bible is this — "the sorrow of 
the world." Paul uses it in the very Scripture where 
he is teaching a note of repentance. He says : ' ' Godly 
sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, a repentance 
which bringeth no regret ; but the sorrow of the world 
worketh death." There is the doctrine, deeply and 
awfully true to life. "The sorrow of the world " — the 
like of it was seen in Judas. Do you remember how 
he felt and did after his betrayal of the Master ? When 
he saw the Master condemned, a change came over the 
traitor. A torrent of regret surged back upon his soul. 
The thirty pieces of silver burnt his fingers. He 
brought back the money to the chief priests and elders, 
and he came not only feeling his guilt, but confess- 



52 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

ing it — "I have sinned in that I betrayed innocent 
blood. " Sorrow for sin, even confession — what came 
of it all ? ' ' And he cast down the pieces of silver into 
the sanctuary, and departed ; and he went away, and 
hanged himself." Remorse and suicide! "The sor- 
row of the world worketh death." 

Let men be careful that their sorrow for sin is 
something better than worldly sorrow. There is so 
much of that, and it does no good. It is a sorrow 
poisoned through and through with pride. It may be 
just a bad feeling that one has because his sin has found 
him out. He feels uncomfortable when the eyes of the 
town are upon him, and everybody looks at him or 
points at him as a marked man. His name is stained, 
and his self-respect is thereby wounded. Self — self — 
self, in a dark, dark shadow of regret that at last deep- 
ens into midnight gloom — this may be the picture of 
one's sorrow over one's sins, the sorrow of desperation 
and despair. We are not to deceive ourselves by re- 
grets and tears. Sentimentally feeling bad is not going 
to bring us salvation. Be careful how you indulge 
such superficial feelings. Have you wept when you 
have heard some anecdote of a death-bed ? Have you 
started a Httle as the memory of past immorality 
pricked your conscience ? Do you shudder when the 
dread reality of God's judgment fills your mind for an 
instant ? Are you possibly feeling more or less com- 
punctions of heart as a confessed sinner ? It may be 
all selfish sorrow. It may do you no good. It may 
turn out the sorrow of the world that worketh death. 

Repentance is something more than sorrow for sin. 
It is something more than feeling bad and shedding 
tears because we have sinned. Repentance grows out 



REPENTANCE. 5 3 

of sorrow ; but that sorrow is what Paul calls "godly 
sorrow, " ' 'sorrow according to God. " ' ' Godly sorrow 
worketh repentance unto salvation, a repentance which 
bringeth no regret." As much as I insistently teach 
that repentance is more than sorrow, because I do not 
want you to stop with being sorry for your sins, and 
especially selfishly sorry, I would not have you get the 
impression that sorrow for sin is of little account. Nay ; 
we can not be too sorrowful over our sins, if we sorrow 
"according to God." "Godly sorrow" there must 
be, deep and full, in every genuine conversion. 

It means, simply and beautifully, does it not, a 
sorrow in which God is ? Already, in the beginning 
of that great change within, God is there. The light 
of His love shines in the sinner's heart. Sinners are 
not left to themselves, to hear awful voices of judgment, 
and to tremble and weep while they feel their guilt, 
and try to work up a sufficient degree of penitence, in 
fear of the Judge of the universe. God is in Christ, 
reconciling the world unto Himself; and the ministry 
of reconciliation is ever a ministry of light and love, in 
which the sinner may repent, and be saved. Sorrow, 
sorrow for sin there is to be in the sinner's heart, as deep 
as life or thought, but never a throb of penitence in 
which the love of God is not felt, never a tear in which 
the light of God does not shine. The sorrow of the 
world is morbid, bitter ; but godly sorrow is sweet and 
relieving and healing. No ; you can not sorrow too much 
over your sinful life, if it is the name of Christ that 
works in your heart, and convinces you of your great 
need of the great salvation. Christ shows you and me 
what we are ; and He shows us ourselves in the light of 
what He is, and what you and I ought to be in becom- 



54 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

ing like Him. That suffering, that death, that rising 
again from the dead, were all to enable us to repent in 
His name — to repent with His sacrifice for sin working 
in our hearts, renewing the very springs of our lives, 
and starting a new growth of goodness through our 
characters — to repent in a surety of authority and ex- 
perience, both what Christ does for us and what He does 
in us, so that the repentance might be unto salvation, 
a repentance which bringeth no regret. Let the sor- 
row have its perfect work. Do not wipe away a single 
tear. Pray rather with the Psalmist, ' ' Put thou my 
tears into thy bottle." Come and kneel at the Saviour's 
feet, and wet them with your tears. Let every sin call 
for a tear. But (oh ! blessed thought) let it be a sorrow 
of tears, healthy while full, hopeful while humbling, 
because it is according to God, as you behold the light 
of His love in giving His Son to die for you, that you 
might be saved. 

Here, then, is the repentance, distinctly. It is 
something more than sorrow. Godly sorrow produces 
it. It is simply, but surely, a change of will — a change 
of will for the better. Deeper than tears, more than 
sorrow, more than surgings of emotion, it is the radical 
work of the Gospel on the will. Something must come 
of the tears, something must come of the sorrow. It 
is godly sorrow, so genuine, so powerful, working its 
way down to the center of moral responsibility, melt- 
ing the hardness, electrifying the motives/ until the 
prodigal child is convinced, persuaded, aroused, and 
speaks aloud the great change within — "I will arise, 
and go to my Father. " How strikingly and beautifully 
that is described in the Parable ! There he sat in his 
rags, hungry, starving, lonely, deserted. And as he 



REPENTANCE. 55 

sat there among the swine, "he came to himself." 
That tells the story. A man comes to himself in the 
extremity of his need. It is the picture of the true 
spirit of a man in any serious need of life. We are 
never ready to appreciate any kind of blessing until we 
come to ourselves — until we see how helpless we are, 
alone, unaided, uncheered, to be anything or to do any 
thing in this world. If one wants to be a scholar, he 
must come to a deep sense of his own ignorance, in com- 
parison with the universe of knowledge, before he is 
really ready to learn and to know. If you would do 
good to humanity in its very lowly calls for help, you 
are not prepared, not qualified in heart, to do such ser- 
vice, until you have been humbled before the mountains 
of difficulties that encompass all wise philanthropy. We 
never appreciate one another in love or friendship until 
we see uncloudedly what life would be bereft of such 
companionship and care. In all these ways and expe- 
riences we may come to ourselves ; and we can look 
up, and around, and above, and we see how little each 
one is in himself, by himself, how dependent on others 
and on things about us for every good. 

Man's greatest need is God — His life, His love. 
You come to yourself as, in some serious hour, you 
feel how poor, and hungry, and helpless, and wretched 
you are without Him. That experience may come in 
different ways. It may come in some awful deed of 
sin, barefaced crime before the community ; or in the 
hard struggle against a devilish temptation where you 
at last give up in despair ; or in the bankruptcy of 
your worldly fortunes ; or by the little grave where all 
your earthly hopes are buried. It may come not sud- 
denly, but slowly, slowly, up through the well-taught, 



$6 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

well-reared life of a young man or a young woman, in 
which there has been no deep ploughing of sin, but 
where there has been a quiet, silent, spiritual growth 
amid common trials and disciplines, the faith of mother- 
hood becoming the faith of childhood, the faith of the 
child the faith of the man, and a. life of large thought 
and daily prayer and pious culture of the heart more 
and more deeply realizing, by its very possession of 
God, how miserable and lost it would be without Him. 
The prodigal son came to ' himself. In that self- 
revelation, where his poor, forlorn life stood out before 
his eyes in all its nakedness and helplessness, there 
arose the fact of his father's house, his father's love, 
and bread to spare. He saw it all, saw it as never 
before ; utterly hungry and destitute, felt how much 
that home and comfort were to him, as he ejaculated, 
"and I perish with hunger." Then came the climax. 
Then came the crisis. Then came the change. Then 
and there he repented. When he felt most deeply his 
sin and guilt, how guilty and undeserving he was, felt 
it most keenly in the very light of his father's love, he 
repented — "I will arise, and go to my father." That 
was repentance, the very moment, the very truth, the 
very experience. It was the radical change of his will. 
It was the radical change of his will, produced in the 
sense of his utter helplessness, the light of his father's 
love shining over him, and the fact of that far-off home 
drawing him. It was the radical change of his will, 
spoken aloud and heard beyond the stars — "I will 
arise, and go to my father, and will say unto him, 
Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight: 
I am no more worthy to be called thy son : make me 
as one of thy hired servants." 



REPENTANCE. 57 

That is the example for every sinner, the example 
of repentance in its crisis and genuineness. Do you 
feel that you are a sinner? Do you feel your sins 
haunting your conscience, and holding you to dread 
account? Do you see how far short you have come 
of duty both to God and man ? Does the Gospel of 
the glory of God show you to yourself, and make your 
poverty of spirit and imperfection of character stand 
out glaringly? But do you, oh! do you, behold the 
Fatherhood of God, made so plain in His Son Jesus 
Christ, who loved us and gave Himself up for us? 
Does not that love, that sacrifice for sin, touch you — 
humble you — soften you — draw you ? Does not the 
name of Christ beget in you a sweet and godly sorrow, 
and gently open the fountain of tears ? Do you not 
long, hungrily long, to be forgiven and saved ? Now 
is your time, if those feelings of guilt and sorrow and 
hunger are there. It is the crisis of your life. The 
commandment of God comes to you more searchingly 
than ever, Repent ! Here, this night, before you leave 
this house, you need to repent. Guilty, sorrowful, 
needy, you ought to repent. You ought to say out of 
an honest heart, feeling its guilt of past sins, but just 
as deeply feeling its responsibility to accept the present 
salvation, you ought to say — "I will arise, and go to 
my Father." Do not let those feelings die away and 
leave you unsaved. Do not let this serious hour pass, 
and nothing good come of it. With sorrow in your 
soul, with tears in your eyes, the goodness of God 
leading you, repent here and now. Let that simple, 
distinct crisis of responsibility have its way. Con- 
victed, persuaded, unresisting, yielding, surrendering, 



58 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

speak as you feel, in the spirit of the old song, ' ' Lord, 
I give myself to thee ; 't is all that I can do. " 

That is repentance — the time, the truth, the expe- 
rience. It is the radical change of your will. It shows 
itself, it proves itself, in what immediately follows, and 
continuously follows. When the prodigal son of the 
Parable repented, when he spoke the deep change of 
his heart and will, " I will arise, and go to my father," 
then the story reads at once, "And he arose, and 
came to his father. " That is what you will do to-night, 
if you genuinely repent. You will arise, and confess 
Christ as your Saviour and Lord. That is what God's 
Word calls "doing works worthy of repentance." 
Sorrow — repentance — reformation — here is repentance 
in origin and result. It originates in godly sorrow ; it 
results in reformation of life. Sorrow, the change of 
heart — repentance, the change of will — reformation, 
the change of conduct, — this is the lucid order of the 
teaching of the Gospel. And the Gospel insists on 
the last as well as on the first or the second. That is 
the reason that we must insist, too, on the result of 
repentance. So will its genuineness be proved. ' i Godly 
sorrow worketh repentance" — we need to hear that. 
"Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance " — that is a 
capital note also to be sounded in preaching the Gospel. 

John the Baptist sounded it distinctly. A preacher 
of repentance, "preaching the baptism of repentance 
unto remission of sins," as the multitudes went out to 
be baptized by him, he warned them, "Bring forth 
therefore fruits worthy of repentance. " He compared 
life to a tree. There at the root was the axe of judg- 
ment. " Every tree therefore that bringeth not forth 
good fruit, is hewn down, and cast into the fire." He 



REPENTANCE. 59 

preached in figures; but he applied his figures to the 
plain prose of duty. Here came the multitudes, in 
their excitement, asking him, "What then must we 
do?" And the answer was ready, just what they 
needed to do — "He that hath two coats, let him 
impart to him that hath none ; and he that hath food, 
let him do likewise." It was a straight lesson in 
unselfishness. And the publicans, the greedy tax- 
gatherers, they came to be baptized, inquiring, 
11 Master, what must we do ? " They heard their sin ; 
they heard their duty — "Extort no more than that 
which is appointed you." Soldiers, inactive service, 
under drill and command every day, they are drawn to 
the wonderful preacher of righteousness, and ask, with 
a stir of new feelings, "And we, what must we do?" 
"Do violence to no man, neither exact anything wrong- 
fully ; and be content with your wages." "Fruits 
worthy of repentance" — reformation of conduct, how 
we appear before others, what we do to others — that 
was the religion of life preached to the eager crowd on 
the banks of the Jordan. It was a lesson of charity 
and philanthropy. It was a duty of honesty and jus- 
tice. It was a standard of self-control and content- 
ment. That kind of life would prove whether men 
had duly repented or not. 

So also was the preaching of Jesus. Did He shield 
a poor adulteress, as her accusers were ready to stone 
her to death? Did He shame them, as He Himself, in 
His spotless chastity, felt ashamed for them, blushing, 
as He stooped and wrote on the ground ? Did He 
gently look upon the woman when the accusers silently 
stole away, and did He speak the superabundant grace 
of God, " Neither do I condemn thee : go thy way " ? 



60 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

It was spoken in a love that immediately touched the 
conscience and braced the will of the poor creature, 
both to repent and reform — " From henceforth sin no 
more." Did His mercy, His condescension, His sweet 
companionship, His lovable humanity, win the publican 
Zacchaeus ? *- ' Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down ; 
for to-day I must abide at thy house " — is that the 
sight, the simple word, the overflowing spirit of love 
that warmed the heart of the extortionate tax-gatherer, 
and melted him to repentance? Hear this whole- 
hearted pledge of reformation immediately made — - 
' ' Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the 
poor; and if I have wrongfully exacted aught of any 
man, I restore fourfold." 

So, also, was the Apostolic preaching. It caused 
the Ephesian sorcerers to bring the books of their trade, 
and make a bonfire of their iniquity, as they believed 
and were saved. It made the rough Philippian jailer 
tender in feeling and kind of hand, as he washed the 
stripes of the imprisoned preachers by whom he was 
baptized. It terrified the worldly Felix as he heard 
Paul reason of righteousness and self-control, and 
the judgment to come. Paul could congratulate the 
Corinthians on what they had become through the 
redemption of the Gospel. Some of them once for- 
nicators, idolators, thieves, drunkards, extortioners, this 
was the note of congratulation that implied the reforma- 
tion worthy of the repentance as it was produced by 
the Gospel of all grace — ''But ye were washed, but 
ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God." 

We hear the call for ethical preaching. It is a 
reasonable call. We hear the demand for a revival of 



REPENTANCE. 6 1 

righteousness. It is an altogether just demand. The 
Gospel of grace is a Gospel of morality. It preaches 
repentance in the name of Christ — the change of mind, 
heart, will ; and that change must bear fruit in a new 
life. Let sinners mark the result. Let them see that 
the reformation of conduct must also appear. What is 
it that you need to do ? What has been your bosom 
sin? Where must you specially cease to do evil, and 
learn to do right? Do you swear? do you take the 
name of God in vain? has the use of by-words become 
a habit with you? Or is drunkenness your failing? is 
the appetite for strong drink a raging thirst in your 
veins, so now by long indulgence, or, alas ! inherited as 
a taint in the blood ? Have you been dishonest in 
trade, or betrayed the trusts of others ? Is your temper 
a fiery one, and has your tongue dropped wrath ? Does 
selfishness beset you, perhaps coarse, perhaps amiable 
and aesthetic, so that it would be a very revolution in 
your life to think of others and do them good ? Have 
you been unthankful ? discontented ? disagreeable ? 
Do these words sound too pointed, too severe, for the 
children present? Do the questions sum up more sins 
and crimes than their young lives have known ? And 
yet there is a repentance even for children. The 
Gospel has a message also for them. 

A young boy lay upon his sick-bed, convalescing, 
after the long battle with fever, weak, pale, thoughtful. 
One day he called his devoted mother to his side, and 
asked her to bend down ; he had something to tell her. 
And with his thin arms around her neck, he spoke from 
the heart — " Mamma, I am so glad that I am going to 
get well ; I was not always a good boy when I was well ; 
I used to say naughty words when I played with the 



62 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

other boys ; but I have asked God to forgive me, and I 
am going to be a better boy when I get up again." 
Do we doubt there was joy in Heaven over that child's 
repentance as he found his way back to duty, believing 
in the goodness and grace of God? Yes, the young 
heart may have its simple sorrow, and may repent in 
the light of a Saviour's love, and may begin building a 
spiritual character. These are some of the needs of 
the hour — one of this person, another of that person, 
and so on. Let them be duly emphasized, without any 
slurring whatever. Let each one think of himself, not 
of his neighbor. As the grace of God brings us salva- 
tion, let us hear its doctrine, its discipline, that we 
are to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and live 
soberly, righteously, godly in this present world. 
Joining the Church — making a profession of religion — 
being baptized, what is the good of it unless the heart 
is in it, and a new life comes from it ? Tears are idle, 
feelings are worse than wasted, and leave you harder 
than ever, if the will energized by the strength of the 
might of God, does not directly and persistently aim to 
break off sins by righteousness. While you sorrow, 
pray, repent, and receive the promises of the Gospel, 
it ought all to be a purpose and a joy that tell on your 
conduct before the world, in your family, wherever you 
are seen and known, so that you could say in all good 
conscience — "I know that I am a better man. " That 
is the life worthy of your repentance. 

But let us, let us, I beg you, keep all the truths of 
the Gospel before us — the new life, and the motive for 
it ; the intense morality of Christian character, and its 
health and inspiration from repentance in the name of 
Christ. Do not agonize in remorse over your sins. 



REPENTANCE. 63 

Do not close your eyes in blind sorrow as you feel 
your guilt. Certainly not. And do not expect to cure 
every fault you have the hour you are forgiven, nor be 
surprised if the fact confronts you that you have a 
conflict with evil yet to be endured. You do not 
repent once for all. Repentance is a life-long duty. It 
is a daily duty. The deepest feeling of sorrow for sin 
is yet to come. It will come, as your old faults 
harass you, and perhaps bring you to the dust. It 
will come especially as you better understand your own 
heart — the evil ever lurking there: that experience of 
humility, prayer, self-renouncement, which is known 
fully only as one sees the highest good, and sees more 
and more that he can attain it only in the grace and 
strength of God. Expect to repent every day — every 
day fresh purposes, fresh resolutions, a new will to do 
right, as you aspire, "All my springs are in thee." 
Begin this very hour. If there is godly sorrow for sin, 
if there is the hunger to be forgiven, if there is a desire 
to be better, that is the auspicious beginning. Let the 
goodness of God lead you to repentance. 



SERMON IV. 



Faith and Like. 



IV. 
FAITH AND LIFE. 

" And that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the 
faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and who gave himself 
up for me." — Gal. ii. 20. 

Faith and life — so the two are brought together in 
this vital, vivid Scripture. It is the Scripture of Script- 
ures concerning faith. This human life lived in faith, 
which centers in the Son of God — there is faith in its 
truest and best condition, and there is life strong and 
satisfying. It is an intense, personal, living faith — 
person to person, life to life, and faith the medium of 
the two. This man who lives and believes gathers up 
all the conviction and all the energy of his being to 
express the faith of his life. It is not a dreamy mood 
of which he is speaking, nor the rare visitations of high 
thoughts, but of his level, every-day existence. "That 
life which I now live in the flesh," says Paul, declaring 
how lowly and how real is his experience. "I live in 
faith," he explicitly confesses, while marking the 
breadth, the fullness, the energy and intensity, of his 
experience. " The faith which is in the Son of God," 
so he describes the reality of the object of his faith ; 
again, how real and personal his faith as it rests upon 
a real, living Person. " Who loved me and gave him- 
self up for me," — so it is a faith, living, personal, real, 
broad, full, intense, which first finds this Person Him- 
self living this human life, living in love, suffering for 

(67) 



68 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

others, a real sacrifice in a history of love and death, 
in whom faith can securely rest, and of whom faith can 
sing its gratitude and praise. Faith in a Life, and so a 
life of faith — here is the perfect idea of the faith once 
for all delivered to the saints. Every other Scripture of 
faith will harmonize with this one, the distinct key-note, 
the sublime climax of them all. A Life in life, for all 
need and for all good — such is the privilege of faith, as 
Paul knows and describes the secret of his own most 
human life. "I have been crucified with Christ" — 
let us listen to his whole burning confession. "I have 
been crucified with Christ ; yet I live ; yet no longer I, 
but Christ liveth in me ; and that life which I now live 
in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son 
of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me." 
It is all a supreme emphasis of life, life in its lowliest 
look, life in its largest energy, this human life in full 
experience ; and Christ the life of it ; and faith realizing- 
this life within life, and singing its sweet refrain. 

I call it the Scripture of Scriptures concerning 
faith. It is indeed the standard for interpreting the 
faith of the Gospel. As we know it, it will save us 
from mistakes about faith. The very spirit and tone 
of it should rebuke one of our ignorant misuses of 
faith. We sometimes hear persons talking about a 
"blind faith." "Oh, I don't profess to understand it 
at all; I just believe." " I can 't explain the matter ; I 
take it simply on trust." Or sometimes faltering lips 
sadly confess, "It is all dark to me — not a ray of light. 
I can only try to hold on to my faith." Not one of 
these notes is a scriptural note. One may talk com- 
placently about just believing, and another may speak 
in despair about it all being dark ; but neither tone is 



FAITH AND LIFE. 69 

ever heard in the confessions of faith in the Bible. The 
word of God knows nothing about a blind faith. It 
never inculcates an ignorant faith. The record of faith 
is a record of faith positive and hopeful. The voice of 
faith, in Old Testament and New, never speaks faintly 
or despairingly, "I simply believe." That vanishing 
tone could never express the faith of prophets and 
martyrs. The healthy, normal faith of the Gospel — 
"The life which I now live in the flesh, I live in faith" 
— has the light of truth in it, has the ring of energy in 
it, has the pulse of duty in it. It could never be a 
faith for life, broad and full as life, if it were blind, or 
ignorant, or hopeless. "The righteous shall live by 
faith, " teaches the prophet of God. " I live in faith, " 
confesses the child of God. And if we could have 
heard them both speak with their mouths, the very 
word faith would have thrilled us with its throbs of life. 
We should be very careful that we do not misun- 
derstand the Word of God in its teaching on the 
relation of faith to intelligence and knowledge. It is 
either a fancy or a paradox when one speaks out, "I 
believe because it is incredible." Or, we reach the 
climax of ignorance and absurdity when we teach that 
we are called upon to believe things contrary to reason. 
Such a process would be self-stultification from begin- 
ning to end, and would yield a harvest of superstitions. 
Nor is it much better to talk of believing tilings that 
are altogether above reason. Perhaps we really mean 
that certain truths seem to be against or out of the 
grasp of your or my reasoning. But we must not 
identify our misjudgments with what is properly called 
reason. Reason is independent of the fallibleness of 
any one mind, while it is evermore a standard to which 



JO EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

we appeal, with which our minds feel a kinship, which 
makes itself felt more and more as our minds grow in 
knowledge and thought, and we see life steadily and 
see it whole. The Word of God never opposes faith 
to knowledge, but faith to sight. It brings faith and 
knowledge together in vital relations. It speaks about 
abounding in faith and knowledge. It joins the unity 
of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. 
Search the Scriptures, and you will see deep experiences 
of the spiritual life taught along with faith. Search the 
Scriptures, and you will find also deep experiences of the 
spiritual life taught along with knowledge. We may 
confess, in the noble language of the old creed, "I be- 
lieve in God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ 
His only Son, our Lord." We may confess our faith, in 
all the true humbleness of believing what these mortal 
eyes have never seen. But we may speak an experi- 
ence equally real in the light of the Gospel truth : " We 
know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us 
an understanding, that we may know him that is true, 
and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus 
Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life." The 
revelation of God anywhere, everywhere, in star, or 
flower, or setting sun, or the mind of man, or in the 
person of His only begotten Son, is not a revelation con- 
trary to reason, nor a revelation above reason. It is a 
revelation for faith, but it is a revelation also of intelli- 
gence, for a growth of knowledge in faith, for a strength 
of faith in knowledge. Faith may receive it, and rea- 
son may know it, for its real truth for life and in life ; 
while all the time there is more to believe, and more 
to know, as man comes more into fellowship with the 
living God in obedience to the Son of His love. If I 



FAITH AND LIFE. *]\ 

would have Paul's faith, if I would say with his energy 
of conviction, "I live in faith," then my faith, filling 
and moving my whole life, must be an intelligent faith, 
an inquiring faith, a studious faith, a growing faith, a 
faith for all thought and duty. If I believe like Paul, 
I must believe with every breath and every step, un- 
ceasingly as I think, and feel, and do. 

We may all be thankful for our coming to see 
better that the faith of the Gospel, the ''one faith," 
as the Scriptures call it, is a living and personal faith. 
One of the fine notes of the pulpit to-day is its empha- 
sis of the person of Christ, Him as the object of trust. 
There is a distrust of man-made creeds, with their 
definitions and abstractions. Less and less do we hear 
such questions as, ' ' Do you believe in total depravity ?" 
or, fl Do you believe in a limited atonement ?" or, "Do 
you believe in the damnation of the heathen?" The 
right time has come when more and more it is felt that 
the all-important question is, " Do you believe in 
Christ?" We are swerving from the mere belief of 
wordy theories about the deep things of God. Men 
are right in being dissatisfied with a blank, notional 
faith, or a cold, propositional faith. While the old 
wine- skins of ecclesiastical confessions are bursting 
with the ferment of modern thought, while differences 
of interpreting human creeds grow wider and wider 
among those who have subscribed to the creeds, it is a 
cheering sign that all eyes turn to the person of Christ, 
and proclaim a simplicity of faith in Him for salvation 
and hope. It is the truth, the whole truth, and noth- 
ing but the truth, more and more widely recognized, 
confessed, preached, that the faith of our salvation is 
not faith in a notion, not faith in a proposition, not 



72 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

faith in a summary of man-made formulas, but faith 
in a person, and Him Jesus Christ the Son of God. 

There is Christ in the Gospel, openly set forth cru- 
cified. We are called upon to look at Him in faith, to 
lean upon Him in faith. The truth of the Gospel is 
thus living and personal, and our obedience is living 
and personal. But now, on the other hand, we must 
beware of a danger. I think that it makes itself un- 
mistakably felt in evangelistic work nowadays. We are 
getting away from a bare notional and propositional 
faith. We are emphasizing a living and personal faith. 
Now let us be careful that, in the way we preach and 
believe, we do not fall into a certain cant, and uncon- 
sciously make this living and personal faith a feeble 
sentiment. For instance, we hear exhortations such as 
"Come to Jesus," " Only trust Him," "Just believe. " 
We hear these over and over amid anecdotes and songs, 
with never a word otherwise, until faith seems to be a 
very weak, narrow thing, and the person of Jesus a 
cloudy, unreal object. A live, serious man might cry 
out sometimes, "Who is He that I may believe in 
Him ? Tell me more of Him. Why should I trust 
Him for my salvation ? What is the salvation that I 
should believe on Him as my Saviour ? " 

When we turn to the Gospel of salvation, it makes 
all this plain. It does not proclaim a blind faith, nor a 
canting faith. It proclaims, indeed, a living and per- 
sonal faith ; but it maks this faith clear, plain, luminous. 
It shows you and me what it is to believe, and how we 
should believe, and why we should believe. It teaches 
what a large thing faith is, as large and deep and full as 
human life. It teaches who the Saviour is, and how 
we may know Him. It reveals Him, describes Him, 



FAITH AND LIFE. 73 

identifies Him with all the truth of God and all the need 
of man. Faith in a Person is the faith of the Gospel ; 
but the Person ! — see Him, mark Him, know Him in 
life and in death, in word, in deed, in character ! 

Consider two Scriptures, in which we are taught how 
free the faith is either of superstition or of senti- 
mentalism. As Jesus passes by, He sees a man blind 
from his birth. He calls the poor man, and restores 
his eyes. As the neighbors wonderingly behold him, 
and ply their question, " How then were thine eyes 
opened?" all that he can answer at first is, "The 
man that is called Jesus — the man that is called Jesus — 
whether he be a sinner, I know not." Jesus finds him 
cast out of the synagogue, and asks him the living, 
personal question, "Dost thou believe on the Son of 
God?'' How large and deep the question is! Some- 
thing more than "the man called Jesus ; '' something 
other than the ignorance, "whether he be a sinner, I 
know not. " " Dost thou believe on the Son of God ? " 
What answer could the poor, ignorant man make but 
"And who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him?" 
Honest, guileless, ready to believe — but first honestly 
and inquiringly, " Who is he, for my faith?" And the 
answer of the Son of God, how personal, and how dis- 
tinctive, instructive, descriptive, "Thou hast both 
seen him, and he it is that speaketh with thee" ! Then 
could the intelligent, grateful confession drop from the 
lips, "Lord, I believe." The Person was real, and 
described for faith ; and the faith was real and intelli- 
gent in the Person. 

Or, turn to an Apostolic scene. An ignorant, bar- 
barous jailer, in a torment of conscience, prostrate, cries 
aloud, "What must I do to be saved?" The answer 



74 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

of the Gospel is immediate, " Believe on the Lord 
Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house.'' 
The answer is simple : it calls for a living and personal 
faith. But read on. There is something more. It is 
not abstractly, "Just believe," nor a cant of repeti- 
tion, " Trust in Jesus," " trust in Jesus." The jailer 
might well then have asked with the man of John's 
testimony, "Who is he, that I may believe on Him?" 
The preacher of the Gospel, in that midnight hour, 
promptly went on to reveal and make known the Lord 
Jesus Christ, Him whom they preached as the object 
of a living and personal faith. " And they spoke the 
word of the Lord unto him, with all that were in his 
house." 

"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ" — such is faith 
living and personal ; but, living and personal, it is a 
faith whose light and life are revealed, taught, meas- 
ured in the Word of God, in which Word also the 
Spirit of truth reveals and describes Him in whom the 
faith livingly and personally centers. It is a faith both 
that intelligent and vital even in the heart's first believ- 
ing. To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ livingly and 
personally, is to believe from what the Word of the 
Lord has to speak concerning Him, and concerning 
Him in His vital relation to those who are exhorted to 
believe. For, according to the faith of the Gospel, 
believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, we are to believe — 

I. Who He is. The Gospel does, indeed, put a 
mighty emphasis on the person of Christ — and right 
here first, the very center of His person, who He is. 
"Who do men say that I am?" It is Jesus's own 
question, addressed to His disciples at a crisis in His 
ministry. Who is He ? This man who goes about, 



FAITH AND LIFE. 75 

doing good, healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, 
raising the dead, preaching the Gospel to the poor — 
who is He ? It is not a small question. It is a supreme 
question. So Jesus will test both the intelligence and 
devotion of His disciples. " Who say ye that I am?" 
The answer is directly and glowingly personal — "Thou 
art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Nay, 
even when Jesus blesses men and women — once when 
He turned the light of His power on the grave, declar- 
ing, "lam the resurrection and the life," and appealed 
to the broken heart weeping beside him, " Believest 
thou this?" again the answer came back vividly per- 
sonal, "Yea, Lord: I have believed that thou art the 
Christ, the Son of God, even He that cometh into the 
world." Again, when disciples were deserting the 
Lord, and when He tested the fidelity of the twelve, 
1 ' Would ye also go away ? " not only does Peter speak 
aloud the heart's deep need, "Lord, to whom shall 
we go?" and the heart's strong grasp of the blessing 
for its need, " Thou hast the words of eternal life," 
but also the heart's clear, unclouded faith concerning 
Him who so richly blesses, "And we have believed, 
and know that thou art the Holy One of God." 

" Believe on Jesus," " trust Jesus." " Who is He, 
that I may believe on Him? " If I have the faith of the 
Gospel, I shall believe, first of all, that He is the Christ, 
the Son of the living God. I shall believe it with all 
my mind and heart in an intelligent, satisfied and grate- 
ful faith. Not in vain did the Apostles thus preach 
and teach concerning Jesus. They preached Him 
vitally and personally ; and they preached the central 
truth of His person for faith ; and this truth of His person 
was the Messiah, the Christ, the fulfiller of prophecies 



J6 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

and the Son of the living God. All through the Book 
of the Acts, the book of conversions, the truth is heard 
over and over that Jesus of Nazareth is Teacher, Saviour, 
Lord — so is He the Messiah, or Christ; and this Christ 
is the Son of the living God. Peter in Jerusalem, Paul 
in Corinth, John in Ephesus — these representatively, 
as we study the Word, these chief Apostles, through- 
out the Apostolic age, are heard exalting and magni- 
fying the person of Jesus. 4 'God hath made him both 
Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom ye crucified, " 
preaches the first. " Whosoever believeth that Jesus 
is the Christ is begotten of God" — " Who is he that 
overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus 
is the Son of God? " teaches the last. It was the faith 
of life and heart, in an adoring look of light and love, 
such a faith that looked up to its living object, and 
spoke aloud — Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
God! 

2. What He has done for us. We are to believe not 
only who He is, but what He has done for us — not only 
the truth of His person, but the facts of His work. We 
have seen the central truth of His person. What now 
are the central facts of His work? They are declared 
explicitly. "I make known unto you, brethren, the 
Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye re- 
ceived, wherein also ye stand, by which also ye are 
saved ; I make known, I say, in what words I preached 
it unto you, if ye hold it fast except ye believed in 
vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which 
also I received, how that Christ died for our sins ac- 
cording to the scriptures; and that he was buried ; and 
that he hath been raised on the third day according to 
the scriptures." The Gospel, by which we are saved, 



FAITH AND LIFE. JJ 

teaches Paul ; the Gospel, which we are to hold fast, in 
a true, living faith — it is a Gospel of facts, of facts to 
be believed in a firm grasp of faith and a strong secur- 
ity of salvation. What are the facts for faith ? The 
death, the burial, and the resurrection of Christ — so 
Paul explicitly particularizes them. Whoever believes 
on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, believes that He 
died for our sins, and that He hath been raised from 
the dead. The Gospel over and over proclaims these 
facts, for the faith that it requires, for the salvation that 
it offers. It does not proclaim these facts occasionally 
nor incidentally. They are vital facts in the integrity 
of the Gospel. They are proclaimed organically with 
the Gospel. They are indissolubly joined with the 
person of Christ. Christ and Him crucified — so the 
Corinthians heard Paul preach Christ. Jesus and the 
resurrection — so the Athenians heard Paul preach 
Jesus. It is simply agnostic indifference that would 
know Jesus without knowing His death and resur- 
rection, as these shine out on nearly every page of the 
New Testament. Or it may be a sentimental mysticism 
which sings and talks about Jesus, and leaves out of 
account an intelligent, fully persuaded belief of the 
solid rockbed of history and testimony concerning Him 
as crucified, dead, buried, risen, ascended. 

The person and the work of Jesus Christ, who He 
is and what He has done — these two, indissolubly, are 
proclaimed in the eternal Gospel. The truth of His 
person and the facts of His work make the Gospel in the 
divineness of its power. It is this Gospel that is de- 
clared to be the power of God unto salvation to every 
one that believeth. On the one side, or rather first, 
Christ is preached, who He is, what He has done ; and 



78 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

in this Gospel livingly preached, containing and con- 
veying the power of God, a living faith is evoked. Paul 
describes it all in a vivid Scripture of truth and logic. 
" Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall 
be saved" — it is the very spirit of the Gospel of grace 
and glory ; no respect of persons ; mercy for all ; man 
the sinner in penitence and tears, feeling the burden of 
his sins, and crying aloud for salvation. " How then 
shall they call on him in whom they have not be- 
lieved?" adds the Apostle with the living logic of the 
Spirit of truth. Faith before prayer, faith with prayer, 
He teaches, as one prays for salvation. "And how shall 
they believe in him whom they have not heard ? " Link 
by link the truth shines forth. No groping in the dark, 
no guesses of fancies about a Saviour and salvation ; but 
a Saviour who is heard in a real testimony of facts. 
"And how shall they hear without a preacher?" Still 
the chain grows, with its living truth both of person 
and message. "And how shall they preach except 
they be sent?" — there is the echo of the voice of the 
crucified and risen Lord, as His feet stand on the mount of 
ascension, and His mouth speaks the world-wide mission 
of the Gospel. Truth and fact, logic and life, faith and 
salvation — here they are clear, sure, intelligent, the 
power of God in it all ; and that power is felt, real and 
strong, in the last note of the Apostle's simple 
doctrine: "So belief cometh of hearing, and hearing 
by the word of Christ." Preaching, hearing, believing, 
praying, salvation ; the Gospel preached, which is the 
power of God, the sword of the Spirit, and man hearing 
it and so believing it, his faith breathing in prayer, and 
so realizing his salvation — such was the Apostolic 
Gospel, and such the Apostolic salvation. 



FAITH AND LIFE. 79 

The harmonies of this scriptural truth are heard 
unmistakably in a hundred Scriptures. Listen ! "Many 
of them that heard the word believed;" "By my 
mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the Gospel, 
and believe; " " Many of the Corinthians hearing be- 
lieved ; " "Having heard the word of the truth, the 
Gospel of your salvation, " — so are taught the responsi- 
bility of the sinner to hear, the necessity of his hearing, 
the critical issues of his hearing, whether he will 
believe or disbelieve. His faith begins in that simple 
act, receiving the testimony of the Gospel concerning 
a Saviour crucified and risen. You can hear. You 
know that you can hear. Each one of you feels his 
responsibility to hear, though he should deny it with 
his next breath. There the Spirit of truth first strives 
with you in the word of the Gospel. It is the first step 
in your conviction. You need to hear the Gospel as 
the power of God in your salvation. Whatever your 
difficulties of mind, or heart, honest doubts, or pride, 
or a feeling of self-sufficiency, or a feeling of loneliness 
and shame in this pitiless world, you want to hear the 
Word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation. It may 
be that you are skeptical concerning the Saviour ; it 
may be that you do not feel your need of salvation ; it 
is barely possible that some one of you, debased and 
degraded by his sins, is wondering whether there is 
any salvation for him. You all need to hear, to listen 
to the Word of Christ, that you may believe. There is 
truth enough and power enough in this Gospel, the 
Spirit of truth in it, the power of God in it, to convince 
and convict you every one that' Jesus is Saviour and 
Lord, and that you need salvation from your sins. 



80 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

Many of us to-night can recall the story that Moses 
E. Lard used to tell so eloquently, in his inimitable 
way, about the skeptical lawyer in a Missouri town. 
He had doubts as to the Christ of the Gospel history. 
His mind stumbled at the two most critical points — 
Christ's character and Christ's authority; these two 
together, so inextricably woven in the Gospel narra- 
tive ; a perfect character claimed for Christ, and abso- 
lute authority claimed by Christ. The lawyer frankly 
expressed his skepticism during a great protracted 
meeting. The man of God straightforwardly ques- 
tioned the skeptic : had he investigated the claims of 
Jesus ? had he studied, compared, pondered the Gospel 
record from beginning to end, every page, every line, 
fully and fairly ? No, he had not — not that protract- 
edly and thoroughly. "Will you doit?" asked the 
big-bodied, big-brained, big-hearted preacher, holding 
out his New Testament, as the Spirit of God opened 
the door of a rich opportunity to a fellow-man's heart. 
The lawyer took the book, read Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
John, day after day, steadily, absorbingly. The pro- 
tracted meeting was still going on, and believers were 
nightly turning to the Lord. One night the lawyer 
took his seat near the pulpit, his face glowing with 
light. He could scarcely wait for the last word of the 
sermon. He would not wait for any rallying song. 
When the old, familiar invitation was extended, and 
before the echo of the preacher's strangely tender 
voice had ceased, the manly attorney arose, with his 
hand on his heart, and spoke aloud in the breathless 
silence of the vast crowd: "My brother, I believe 
with all my heart that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
the living God, and I want to confess Him as my Saviour 



FAITH AND LIFE. 8 1 

and Lord." Oh! how that conversion in the nine- 
teenth century shines in the light of the old Apostolic 
word — " These are written that ye may believe that 
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that believing 
ye may have life in his name " ! 

If, therefore, you have the vital faith of the Gospel, 
you will believe in your heart who Christ is, and what 
He has done for you — what He has done for you, and 
who He is to you. His life, His death, His resurrection, 
His character, His teaching, His work, His authority, 
His promises — these you will hold together in a living 
unity of intelligence and faith and obedience. The 
more you study Him, the more you will be convinced 
that He can not be estimated piecemeal. The more 
you study your own heart, the more you will feel that 
Bethlehem and Calvary and Pentecost speak to your 
deepest need with the truth of salvation. Do we hear 
the familiar note about feeling our need of salvation, in 
a true conviction of sin ? The way to feel that need is 
to behold the Saviour — to look at Him, read Him, hear 
Him, learn of Him. ''Behold the Lamb of God, which 
taketh away the sin of the world," is the prophet's 
voice. "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw 
all men unto myself," is the world-wide vision of the 
Cross of Christ. "Before whose eyes Jesus Christ 
was openly set forth crucified," is the Apostolic 
Gospel. Christ and Him crucified — Christ, not only 
Christ crucified; Christ crucified, not only Christ — 
both together — how He lived, who He was, what He 
taught, what He did, how He suffered and died, how He 
arose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, and 
sent the Spirit of truth to convince the world of sin, — 
this is the Gospel to be preached to the whole creation. 



82 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

As we hear it, our responsibility becomes clear — do we 
believe it, or disbelieve it? This will be our sin, of 
which the Holy Spirit will convict us, that we believe 
not on the Son of God for salvation. Because He was 
pure and sinless, Himself Man; because He was 
tempted, and fell not ; because He bore our sicknesses 
and infirmities ; because He taught us fully of God and 
duty and immortality; because He obeyed His Father's 
will, and fulfilled all righteousness : because He became 
obedient even unto death — yea, the death of the Cross ; 
because He conquered death, and ever liveth to make 
intercession for us — because of this rich, round, true, 
living Gospel we are responsible before God for believ- 
ing or disbelieving it. If such a Gospel does not con- 
vict you of sin, if such a Gospel does not make you 
feel your need of salvation in showing you such a 
Saviour who takes away your sin, and brings you a new 
life, it must be that you indifferently or rebelliously 
disbelieve it, to your condemnation. 

Who Christ was, and what He has done for men, is 
just this living a truth and power for their salvation. 
His words, His deeds, His death, His resurrection, are 
the shining rays of the central sun of His person. We 
believe what He taught and did, no cunningly devised 
fable ; we believe that He died for our sins, and was 
raised for our justification ; we believe in our hearts 
that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God ; and — 
now listen — believing all this, we are prepared to believe 
on Him, and in Him. " Ye believe in God, believe also 
in me," teaches Jesus. "Believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ," exhorts the Apostle. The true faith is just 
that living and personal. It is verily trust in a person. 
The rays of His words and deeds and precepts lead up 



FAITH AND LIFE. 83 

to Him, in all the glory of His character and the majesty 
of His authority, as He really lives to-day and forever. 
To believe savingly is to believe not only who He is, 
not only what He has done, but to believe on Him and 
in Him in view of who He is and what He has said and 
done. To believe savingly is to trust Him — in our 
hearts, as He teaches and draws us, to entrust ourselves 
to Him as Teacher, Saviour, and Lord. Does it seem 
very simple, after all ? So it is. It is just like your 
child's believing you and believing in you. He trusts 
you, a father, a mother, for what you promise him, 
and for everything that you are to him and everything 
that you have done for him. It is like my trusting in 
my friend, whose words I believe, whose favors I 
could not doubt, and who, in the realness of his char- 
acter, wins my heart for a daily trust in him. The 
living faith of the Gospel believes that Jesus is the 
Christ, the Son of the living God ; it believes that He 
died for our sins, and that God raised Him from the 
dead ; it believes in Him, and on Him — it trusts Him, 
it entrusts itself to Him according to His word, fully 
assured that what He promises He is able to perform. 

A living faith in a living Lord — this the faith of the 
Gospel — there is one scriptural word that expresses and 
proves how real and living such faith is. I wish that I 
could speak it without making a single stir of contro- 
versy. I should like so much to bring it in for our 
light and help apart from all jarring and warring opin- 
ions. The Scriptures mention it so naturally. They 
make it express and prove the inmost heart of faith. 
They teach it as a vital experience of a real faith. This 
luminous word is obedience. How sublimely it figures 
in the Gospel ! It is a mighty word in the vision of 



84 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

the world-wide mission of the Gospel. The mystery 
of redemption, "made known unto all the nations unto 
obedience of faith;" grace and apostleship, "unto 
obedience of faith among all the nations"; Christ's 
work, "for the obedience of the Gentiles," — so the 
great Apostle of world-wide missions beholds and 
describes the living faith. " A great company of the 
priests were obedient to the faith," is a striking note 
of the fruit of the personal faith. " By faith Abraham, 
when he was called, obeyed " — " Thou seest that faith 
wrought with his works, and by works was faith made 
perfect," — let two Scriptures summarize them all : they 
teach faith as expressing and proving and perfecting 
itself in obedience. The Gospel faith issues in 
obedience, as the hidden waters of a fountain spring 
forth in a flowing stream. The Gospel faith is proved 
in obedience, as the loyalty of a soldier declares itself 
in promptly heeding the word of command. The 
Gospel faith perfects itself in obedience, as the seed of 
the plant works through stalk and leaf, on to the 
bright consummate flower. 

It is this living faith, alive in the heart, alive in 
word, alive in deed, which, according to the Gospel, 
receives salvation. Can we hear the doctrine without 
straightway facing each other for a theological combat? 
What saith the Scripture ? Not simply one Scripture, 
but any Scripture, all the Scriptures that speak specifi- 
cally of salvation, and represent man as receiving or 
realizing his salvation. "Every one that believeth on 
him shall receive remission of sins." So says the 
Word of God. "Repentance and remission of sins 
should be preached in his name." It is the same Word. 
"With the mouth confession is made unto salvation." 



FAITH AND LIFE. 85 

Still the Word of truth speaks. " Which also after a 
true likeness doth now save you, even baptism." Shall 
we not also hear this teaching of the Holy Spirit ? Or, 
how do we read salvation in the Apostolic ministry of 
the Gospel? "What must I do to be saved ? " cries 
out an anxious inquirer. " Believe on the Lord Jesus, 
and thou shalt be saved," is the ringing answer. 
"Brethren, what shall we do?" was the no less anxious 
cry of a vast crowd of inquirers. Again the answer 
comes clear to mind and heart: "Repent ye, and be 
baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ 
unto the remission of your sins ; and ye shall receive 
the gift of the Holy Spirit." " And now why tarriest 
thou?" so speaks an humble disciple to another 
inquirer found on his knees in prayer; " and now why 
tarriest thou ? arise, and be baptized, and wash away 
thy sins, calling on his name." Faith, in one Script- 
ure, prominent ; in another, repentance and baptism 
prominent; instill another, baptism alone prominent. 
Faith and salvation, repentance and salvation, confes- 
sion and salvation, baptism and salvation — so they are 
taught in the Word of God ; so they were preached by 
Peter and Paul to inquirers ; and so concerning those 
of Jerusalem, and those of Philippi, and those of Ephe- 
sus, could the history be written as it was concerning 
those of Corinth — "Many of the Corinthians, hearing, 
believed, and were baptized." 

Does it not look like a live faith ? It is vitally felt 
with repentance. It is vitally heard in confession. It 
is vitally seen in baptism. Does it not look like the 
obedience streaming forth from the heart of faith, the 
obedience proving the health and vigor of faith, the 
obedience blooming like a flower in the life of faith? 



86 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

It is all so live and real. There is no disappointment 
of salvation. There is never an agonizing, uncertain 
delay as to salvation. It is light and life, and salvation. 
It is faith and obedience, and salvation. The light of 
salvation shines, and faith lives in obedience, and the 
obedient believer rejoices greatly. Here is the fact, 
without controversy : the Word of God shows the true 
faith of the Gospel as never hiding itself, never halting, 
under the light of the Spirit of truth, but promptly 
and gladly becoming an obedient faith. See the live 
faith of Saul of Tarsus, as he repents of his bloodthirsty 
deeds, and prays, and waits the will of the Lord. See 
the live faith of the penitent jailer in his tenderly 
washing the wounds of Paul and Silas. See the live 
faith of Ephesian sorcerers, who, believing, came, con- 
fessing, and declaring their evil practices. See the live 
faith of a pagan visitor to the house of God, as he is 
convicted of sin, and then and there falls down on his 
face and worships the true God, declaring that God is 
in that gathering indeed. 

I do want to know if we can not hear these oracles 
of God concerning the living faith, without any need 
of controversy. There will never be controversy, if 
we accept this simple teaching as to how the faith of 
the Gospel comes, and what it believes, and what it 
does. It comes by hearing the Word of God. It 
believes who Christ is, and trusts Him for salvation, 
and speedily obeys Him. If faith is that real and living, 
whence can doubt or debate arise ? Why, just here 
has been the war of opinion. On the one hand, it has 
been taught that this simple faith, born in hearing the 
Gospel, penitent and heartfelt though the faith be, is 
not the kind of faith which receives salvation. Accord- 



FAITH AND LIFE. 87 

ing to this teaching, there must be a faith wrought in 
the heart wholly apart from the Word of truth, in 
answer to prayer alone, prolonged and painful, if need 
be. On the other hand, in a wide extreme, it has 
been taught that this very penitent and heartfelt faith, 
rightly indeed produced in hearing the Gospel of sal- 
vation, still has no promise nor realization of salvation 
at all before confession and baptism. Both doctrines 
are wrong, according to God's Word. The first is 
cloudy mysticism ; the second is abstract rationalism. 
According to the Scriptures, as we have seen, the faith 
of salvation comes by hearing the Gospel, which is 
declared to be the power of God unto salvation; 
and according to the Scriptures, a heartfelt faith has 
already in itself the beginnings of salvation. The 
mystic is wrong when he undervalues the faith that 
the Spirit of truth effects in the heart as one hears the 
Gospel of grace. The rationalist is wrong as he argues 
all sense of any salvation out of a penitent, heartfelt 
faith, and argues salvation of faith only and really in 
possession when faith expresses itself in baptism. 

No ; this is all a wrong reading of the Word of 
God. The Scriptures teach faith and salvation, 
repentance and salvation, confession and salvation, 
baptism and salvation. It is sheer mysticism, when 
the Scripture says, " Many of the Corinthians hearing 
believed," straightway to deny that their faith was a 
saving faith. It is bald rationalism, when the Scripture 
pictures a penitent believer, " Behold, he prayeth," 
straightout to deny that he has experienced yet any 
salvation in reality. It is mere mysticism that forbids 
one who has heard the Gospel, and believes it in his 
heart, to presume yet to confess his faith in the Lord 



88 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

Jesus. It is cold rationalism that sees another penitent 
believer tenderly washing the stripes of God's servants, 
and yet professes to see therein no proof of a living 
faith realizing salvation until later the believer is bap- 
tized. No ; if you have a clear conviction of sin, a 
heartfelt persuasion of Christ as a Saviour, a willingness 
to do God's will, all this inward renovation, the work 
of the Spirit of truth in His strivings with men, means 
your salvation begun in you as a present reality. Such 
a spiritual renewal of the springs of your being, such 
a spiritual transformation of the courses of your life, are 
possible only as a real redemption wrought for all men, 
and making itself felt in you, according as you receive 
it. Thought by thought, feeling by feeling, will by 
will, as the influence of the Word of the truth of the 
Gospel works duly in you, O my fellow-man ! it is 
the Gospel of your salvation — a spiritual reality in every 
touch of every experience. 

Ah ! brethren, when we center on fierce contro- 
versies as to how faith comes, or whether there is any 
remission of one's sins at all until one is baptized, no 
wonder we lose complete sight of the rich Scriptures 
that reveal the very heart of human redemption. Would 
we know, indeed, the origin, the beginning, of sal- 
vation? Behold God ! "God so loved the world" — 
that is God's attitude toward a sinning world ; a heart 
of love in the gift of His only begotten Son. Nay, 
before John the Baptist pointed to Jesus, saying, 
1 ' Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the 
sin of the world," the Scriptures sublimely speak of 
"the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation 
of the world." So true is it that there has never been 
an hour since Adam and Eve, 



now 



FAITH AND LIFE. 89 

" Hand in hand, with wandering step and slow, 
Through Eden took their solitary way." 

but there has been the presence of redemption, whether 
in twilight tints of mornings heavily clouded, or in the 
noontide glory of the days of the Son of man. Do we 
dispute over the time of one's salvation ? The lofty 
Scripture teaches God's "own purpose and grace" as 
eiven us in Christ Jesus before times eternal, but 
manifested by the appearing of our Saviour Christ 
Jesus." Do we debate both how and when God for- 
gives sinners? Again, the Word represents "God in 
Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning 
unto them their trespasses." God loving sinners, giv- 
ing the Son of His love to die for them, forgiving them 
in the sacrifice of His Son, calling and bidding them 
to realize this salvation in the obedience of faith, and 
threatening their condemnation if they disbelieve it — 
this is the clear, simple Gospel of His grace. And 
this Gospel affirms and assures salvation to man with 
his every real, sincere experience of the Gospel in truth 
and power, and accordingly exhorts him to make the 
salvation more and more his own in the obedience of a 
living faith. "The word is nigh thee," so real and near 
is this salvation, so easy to receive; "in thy mouth, 
and in thy heart," so real and personal as a saving ex- 
perience : ' ' because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth 
Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God 
raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved: for with 
the heart man believeth unto righteousness ; and with 
the mouth confession is made unto salvation. " Certainly, 
in the believing heart is the presence of the righteousness 
of God, a real righteousness experienced i-n a vital faith. 
Certainly, with the confessing mouth is the presence 



90 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

of salvation, a real salvation, becoming more real and 
assured in the good confession. The mysticism is 
blind which denies the clearness of salvation in such 
faith. The rationalism is mechanical which argues 
away still any realness of salvation in such confession. 
The salvation of God is there in the vital faith, as it 
flows forth in living words. Nay, more, according to 
the Gospel of your and my salvation, this living faith, 
as we read the stories of conversions in the Apostolic 
ministry, becomes more obedient still in holy baptism. 
The penitent believer is duly and gladly baptized. In 
the light of the Gospel, he eagerly cries, "Behold, 
water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?" For, in 
the light of the Gospel, baptism neither a fetich nor 
a whim, in baptism his salvation is beautifully rep- 
resented, in baptism his salvation is helpfully con- 
firmed, in baptism his salvation is blessedly associated 
with the salvation of others, in baptism his salvation is 
potentially consummated in the hope of eternal life. 
In short, it is a living faith all the time, alive and 
throbbing in obedience, and salvation a real blessing 
with every throb of the heart and every word and 
deed of the life. "The Lord added together day by 
day those that were being saved " — such is the vital fact 
concerning those first converts in Jerusalem, who heard 
the Gospel, believed it in their hearts, repented of 
their sins, confessed the name of Jesus, were baptized, 
and went on loving one another and praising God. 
The process of one's salvation is real and sweet with 
the process of one's obedience, as the obedience flows 
from a living faith in the living Son of God. 

" Dost thou believe on the Son of God? " Search 
yourselves, and see if you are living in this living faith. 



FAITH AND LIFE. 9 1 

It is the faith of faiths, and fills human life. ' ' He 
that disbelieveth shall be condemned." You must 
face this responsibility. ' ' He that believeth on the 
Son hath eternal life ; but he that obeyeth not the Son 
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on 
him." Faith and life, disobedience and the wrath of 
God — here they are set before you : choose you to-night 
which you will do — live by faith in Jesus Christ, or 
judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life. ' ' Dost 
thou believe on the Son of God?" Do you believe on 
Him as your Saviour, your Teacher, your Lord ? In 
your heart right now, as the Spirit of truth teaches and 
draws you, is there a real, living faith in the Lord Jesus 
Christ? Then, according to the old, simple, clear 
Apostolic Gospel, express your faith, prove your faith, 
perfect your faith. Do not hesitate. Do not delay. 
Do not be misled. If in your heart you believe the 
Word of the truth, the Gospel of your salvation, it is a 
saving faith ; the precious blood of the Lamb of God 
is there, redeeming and sanctifying you. Promptly, 
gladly, in the power and precept of the Gospel, let 
your faith express itself, prove itself, perfect itself in 
obedience. In the faith of your heart, confess the 
name of Christ. Oh ! according to those plain Apos- 
tolic examples, in the faith of your heart confess the 
name of Christ : according to those plain Apostolic 
examples, in the faith of your heart be baptized into 
the name of Christ. Let the living and saving faith 
of your heart save you to-day and forever in a life of 
obedience. 

It is all so real. It is a real faith. It is a real salva- 
tion. It is a real life. It is salvation from sin and 
death, and salvation for a life in union and commu- 



92 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

nion with the life of the Son of God. We not only 
believe who He is, and what He has done, but in our 
faith we live in Him, and He lives in us. We not 
only believe on Him and in Him, but in our faith He 
becomes our life, the light and life of all our living. 
Whatever our life, as we live in loving obedience to 
the Lord Jesus Christ, we find Him present in it all. 
" Christ liveth in me "— there is the secret of life in 
the power of faith. " Christ liveth in me" — so can 
we overcome sin, and grow pure in heart and char- 
acter. " Christ liveth in me " — so must we meet trial, 
and become wise and strong. "Christ liveth in me " — 
so are we to live every day in lowly rounds and humble 
tasks. "Christ liveth in me" — here is the life of 
prayer and doing good. "Christ liveth in me" — it is 
the light for all objects of all thought, the light in 
which we shall see God, and read man, and mark the 
travail and course of all the world. A personal faith, 
a living faith, felt in all our mind and life, Christ 
become so real to us as we love and obey Him, it may 
confess day by day in strong joy and hope, "I know 
him whom I have believed" — "We know that, if he 
shall be manifested, we shall be like him ; for we shall 
see him even as he is" — "When Christ, who is our 
life, shall be manifested, then shall we also with him 
be manifested in glory." 



SERMON V. 
The Good Confession, 



THE GOOD CONFESSION. 

"And didst confess the good confession in the sight of many wit* 
nesses." — /. Tim. vi. 12. 

Could there be a finer thrill of memory ! Paul ap- 
peals to the past while exhorting Timothy in the 
pursuit of eternal life. He bids Timothy to look back, 
and recall a scene and rehear a voice. There in Lystra, 
a city lying on a dreary plain at the foot of a volcanic 
mountain, the population generally idolators, theie in 
the very first days of Paul's and Barnabas's preaching, 
a Jewish boy was modestly standing in the sight of 
many witnesses, a grandmother's kindly eye resting 
upon him, and a mother's heart throbbing with joy. 
He is but a little way in his teens ; yet, in the hushed 
assembly, bravely and beautifully he speaks aloud the 
faith of his youthful heart — "I believe that Jesus is 
the Christ, the Son of the living God." 

It was the good confession, as Paul definitely and 
preeminently calls it. Not a good profession, as it ap- 
pears in the old version, but as it is accurately trans- 
lated in the Revised Version, the good confession. Paul 
stirringly appeals to that, as he incites Timothy in the 
spiritual conflict. For Timothy there was, in the 
thought of it, all the tenderness of a sweet human mem- 
ory — his boyhood days, the devoted care of him by 

his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice, his learn- 

(95) 



g6 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

ing of God and the Messiah to come, the familiar walks 
and faces of his native town, and that memorable day 
when, in the presence of parents, neighbors, friends, 
he declared his heartfelt allegiance to the Son of God. 
He was a man now, a minister of the Gospel, with an 
experience of twenty years' service under Paul, and just 
then charged with a laborious mission in the idolatrous 
city of Ephesus. But in that far-off time, in that far- 
away scene, as Paul knew, and as Paul urged, the 
grown man, as he recalled it all, would find an ever- 
fresh and powerful motive for manhood's duty and 
hope. " Fight the good fight of the faith, lay hold on 
the life eternal, whereunto thou wast called, and didst 
confess the good confession in the sight of many wit- 
nesses." 

"The good confession." It is something definite. 
It is something distinct. It is concerning a Person. 
But while definite and distinct, and concerning a 
Person, it is, as set forth so frequently in the Scriptures, 
a rich and varied confession, not in any one form of 
words. Here is the fine interest of our study this 
evening. We want to see the meaning of this con- 
fession, its broad and deep meaning, and how good it 
is. It must be singularly good that, while so definitely 
and distinctly concerning a Person, and making a 
powerful motive for one's whole spiritual life, at once 
a memorial and an ideal, it is not expressed rigidly in a 
theological formula, but flows out in richness and varied- 
ness of utterance, always more in meaning than the 
mouth can speak, always clear and simple in what is 
spoken, even by childlike lips. There is all this interest 
about the good confession, as it is taught in the Word 
of God, now the voice of an individual heart, or again 



THE GOOD CONFESSION. 97 

the flower of a timely development of Apostolic doc- 
trine. Let us study it thus together, a personal speech, 
warm from the heart of a believer, or a progress of 
doctrine in some new outgrowth of revelation. 

I. Jesus is walking among men. It is at the out- 
set of His earthly mission. And already men are con- 
fessing Him. Mark how definite and distinct the 
confession ! Andrew, abiding with Jesus and hearing 
His teaching, goes forth at nightfall to find his own 
brother, and goes confessing, " We have found the 
Messiah." Philip, called by Jesus, hastens to find 
Nathanael ; and again there is a confession, definite, 
but varied in the heart's joy — "We have found him, 
of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, 
Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. " Nathanael, 
guileless, devout, inquiring, at last convinced by what 
he saw and heard, speaks the faith of his heart — 
"Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art King of 
Israel." So the record of confessions runs. There is 
no hard and fast form of words, no mechanical repeti- 
tions, no unintelligent memorizings. Men are speak- 
ing out of the throbs of a new life that they find in 
themselves. Each man speaks, as the heart gives him 
utterance. The presence of Jesus, the words of Jesus, 
the deeds of Jesus, are stirring the depths of human 
experience, and blessing those that receive Him in 
faith and love; and every keen sense of the need of 
Him, and every fresh attraction to Him, and every 
new-found comfort in Him, brings forth a confession, 
definite and distinct, and rich and varied. Jesus once, 
as many of his disciples went back and walked no 
more with Him, turned to the Twelve, and touchingly 
asked, "Would ye also go away?" It was, of course, 



98 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

the impulsive Peter that answered for all their hearts' 
devotion : " Lord, to whom shall we go ? thou hast the 
words of eternal life." And this passionate need and 
attachment finds its intelligent, pointed confession — 
"And we have believed and know that thou art the 
Holy One of God." So distinct it is, and again beauti- 
fully varied in the fullness of the soul's faith. Even 
the depths of sorrow, illumined by the comfort of 
Jesus — here, too, the believer confesses with the mouth 
a good confession. For she has met the Lord, and 
heard His assuring word — "Thy brother shall rise 
again." She has heard His word, as it becomes a finer 
light in light — " I am the resurrection and the life : he 
that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live : 
and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never 
die." And when the heart is challenged concerning 
its belief of this wonderful light radiating from the very 
presence of God, it does not stumble, it sees a truth, 
it feels a comfort, it sums up its faith in unhesitating 
confession: "Yea, Lord: I have believed that thou 
art the Christ, the Son of God, even he that cometh 
into the world." 

Do we not begin to see why it is worthily called 
the good confession? Men and women are seeing 
Jesus, hearing Him, following Him, receiving from 
Him blessing after blessing — light, comfort, hope — and 
their hearts must speak concerning Him. It is the 
intelligence of faith as well as the sincere gratitude of 
faith. They say what they think of Him. They 
speak out who they think He is. To some such pro- 
nouncement must every study of Jesus finally come. 
This One whose character is spotless, who imparts life 
in teaching truth, who consoles all sorrow, who goes 



THE GOOD CONFESSION. 99 

about doing good, who promises the resurrection of 
the dead — what are we to think of Him ? whose Son is 
He ? Let the answer be clear and definite. The 
mind craves it. The heart prompts it. We can not 
be satisfied with Carlyle's silence. We can but be 
dissatisfied with Renan's rhetoric. Let us speak out. 
Let our words not evaporate in figures. Let them 
crystallize in confession. Those first believers — Andrew, 
and Philip, and Nathanael, and Peter, and Martha — 
confess Him ; and the full and definite confession of 
the harp of faith, harmonizing its divers tones, is the 
strain, ' ' Tho\i art the Christ, the Son of the living God." 
"The Christ" — here is the first stage of the good 
confession ; here is its first, continual emphasis. Jesus 
of Nazareth is the Christ. The word was no strange 
one to a Jew. It was to him a rich word of Jewish 
history — this term, Christ in Greek, Messiah in Hebrew, 
Anointed to us in English. An anointed one — a 
Christ — was a familiar person in Israel. Peter and 
Martha could look back, and see priests anointed, 
prophets anointed, kings anointed. It was the sign of 
God upon them for their office — consecrating them, 
giving them authority, protecting them. They were 
His anointed ones, as they spilt the blood of bulls and 
goats, or taught a message of truth and duty, or ruled 
the people in equity. But Philip and Nathanael now 
beheld Him who towered above all the anointed ones 
of other days. Here was the Priest of the priests, the 
Prophet of the prophets, the King of the kings — 
greater than Abel, and wiser than Moses, and more 
royal than David. They were the types : He was the 
antitype. They were the shadows ; He was the sub- 
stance. The service of these anointed priests, prophets, 



IOO EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

kings, was now to be fulfilled in Him, the Anointed, 
the Messiah, the Christ. The true Israel could not 
mistake Him. His presence was fragrant with pro- 
phecy ; His speech echoed many a word of Old Testa- 
ment teaching; His look was that of a Jew. The true 
Israel, needy, hungry, sore, could but find Him, and 
straightway confess Him. He was just that real to 
Andrew and Philip. They might not comprehend Him 
fully; they might stumble at this or that word; but 
they understood what they did understand of Him. 
Fearing God and loving truth, with good and honest 
hearts, they could take in the testimony of the Christ's 
own concerning Himself: "The Spirit of the Lord is 
upon me, because He anointed me to preach good 
tidings to the poor: He hath sent me to proclaim 
release to the captives, and recovering of sight to the 
blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to pro- 
claim the acceptable year of the Lord." As they saw 
all this, and themselves were blest by Jesus, they could 
but remember the Word of the Lord ; and putting the 
two together, they confessed, at once in clear thought 
and fervent gratitude, their definite, satisfied faith — 
"Thou art the Christ." 

This is the origin of "the good confession," as it 
was succinctly and familiarly called a quarter of a 
century later among those early Christians. We see 
it here in the making, as it centers upon the person of 
Jesus, and means so much while it speaks so briefly — 
a word of truth to those first believers, and a word out 
of their hearts, and a definite word with their mouths. 
And this is the first stage of meaning — it confesses the 
Christ. It thinks and speaks of Jesus distinctively as 
the Messiah, the Anointed. It is the Jewish aspect 



THE GOOD CONFESSION. IOI 

and emphasis of the good confession. While Jesus 
was upon earth, and when He had arisen from the 
dead and ascended into Heaven, both before and after, 
the Jewish believers think and speak of Him as the 
Christ. So Peter preached Him to Jews on the day of 
Pentecost ; and so Paul proclaimed Him in Rome to 
the Jews that came to the Apostle's lodging. Jesus 
of Nazareth, the Christ — this was the Apostolic word 
for the temple, and for the synagogue, and for the 
place of prayer by the river side. So they in Jerusalem 
believed, and so the noble Bereans. Out of the Old 
Testament Scriptures was the argument made, and the 
testimony of Apostles enforced ; and many a Jew that 
believed in God was persuaded to believe in Jesus as 
the Christ of God. It was a vital faith, an intelligent 
faith, spoken from the peace and joy of a Lydia's or a 
Crispus's heart — "I believe that Jesus is the Christ, 
the Son of the living God." 

2. There is another stage in the growth of the 
good confession. Later on, in the spread of the 
Gospel, it takes on a specially vivid aspect ; it develops 
a particularly stronger emphasis. I do not mean that 
this tone was not heard before. It was sounded neces- 
sarily in the harmony of the idea of the Christ. It had, 
too, a distinct note in Peter's very sermon on the day 
of Pentecost. Nor do I mean that this vivid aspect, 
this stronger emphasis, as it is progressively developed, 
darkens or silences all else of this good confession that 
went before. No ; for the doctrine, the confession, 
fully and definitely, that Jesus is the Christ, is heard 
in the Scriptures from the last Apostolic voice. Yet 
there is indubitably in Paul's teaching a fresh, singular, 
impressive voice, a pointedly recurrent voice, on con- 



102 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

fessing Jesus. Again we shall see how divinely rich 
is the idea of this good confession, whose fullness of 
meaning no one form of words can contain; and again 
we shall see how definite and emphatic it can become 
for practical understanding and benefit, in this doctrine 
peculiarly Paul's own. 

The very first fact of the matter is striking. The 
word Christ, in Paul's use, undergoes a change. It is 
not always, with him, an official word. It does not 
always emit, under his dictation, its peculiar sense, 
anointed. He does not always mean to bring out that 
sense. Nay, very, very often he practically lets it go 
altogether. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, fre- 
quently transcends the Jewish meaning of the word 
Christ. Mark how again and again he uses it, not offi- 
cially, but personally. "Christ" becomes on his lips, 
so significantly, a dear, warm word for the person of 
Christ. The larger, complete idea of Christ's person 
swallows up the special notions of His office, as these 
are seen and embodied by the Jewish mind. How 
fervently personal is this word with Paul. "Christ 
died for us" — "For to me to live is Christ" — "Christ 
in you, the hope of glory" — a hundred times over, 
indeed, does Paul speak in this deeply vital and personal 
way of Jesus of Nazareth, not saying, the Christ, but 
simply, Christ. 

It means plainly enough that the "secret of Jesus," 
a fine phrase of this day, Paul had thoroughly mastered. 
Jesus as a personal character for love and imitation, 
Jesus as a power in the heart, Jesus as a motive in 
duty, Jesus as a life in men's lives — all that He taught, 
all that He did, all that He was in the way of spiritual 
light and influence, received and realized continuously 



THE GOOD CONFESSION. IO3 

in human experience — this truth, which even a certain 
school of skepticism consents to, was a shining reality 
for Paul. And so real and living is Jesus for Paul, 
that the Apostle, speaking and writing the name 
Christ, drops off any purpose of emphasizing its Hebrew 
conception of office, and uses it of the risen and exalted 
Jesus, who dwells henceforth in the hearts of His dis- 
ciples, the very fullness of God for human lives and duty. 
But. mark you ! Paul makes a definite confession 
of Jesus. Jesus is this fullness of life for him, in a 
beautiful spiritual reality that can not be reasonably 
gainsaid ; but the Apostle does not lose himself in 
vague mysticism. Out of this fullness of life he, too, 
confesses the good confession. He speaks of Jesus 
definitely and distinctively. He brings out a fresh 
aspect, he makes a particular emphasis of the good 
confession. The emphasis is heard in his preaching* 
" We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord." 
The Lordship of Jesus — this is what Paul sets forth 
with an emphasis and variety peculiarly his own. The 
idea is wrapt up in the Hebrew conception of the 
Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed. The Christ is, 
indeed, Prophet, Priest, and King. But Paul singles 
out this Kingship. He emphasizes it. He enforces 
it. It is, with him, a distinctively strong note of the 
good confession. Listen: "No man can say Jesus is 
Lord but in the Holy Spirit.' ' What he thus preaches 
and teaches, the Lordship of Jesus, he enforces as a 
confession of the believer — "the word of faith, which 
we preach." What is this particular word? " If thou 
shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord" — a faith 
of the heart, of course, it must first be — "and shalt 
believe in thy heart that God raised him from the 



104 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

dead." But while "with the heart man believeth unto 
righteousness," yet, really and definitely, as the 
Apostle immediately adds, " with the mouth confession 
is made unto salvation." The Lordship of Jesus Christ 
— in confession — what a favorite truth it is with Paul ! 
Hear him once more in the sublime climax of his teach- 
ing. It is the noble Scripture concerning Christ's 
emptying Himself, and humbling Himself, and becom- 
ing obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the 
cross. Then listen to this paean of glory, with its 
distinct, mighty note of confession: "Wherefore also 
God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name 
which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus 
every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things 
on earth and things under the earth, and that every 
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the 
glory of God the Father. " 

Is it not a very definite confession, looked at from 
whatever point of view ? And yet is it not definite 
and richly varied together ? Do you not think there is 
need of this emphatic note of the good confession ? Is 
it not well that, in the progress of Christian doctrine, 
Paul should so illustriously set forth the Lordship of 
Jesus? Is it not a true note for heart and duty that 
the Apostle, in reminding Timothy of that memorable 
vow, should remind him too "of Christ Jesus, who 
before Pontius Pilate witnessed the good confession" — 
the dominant note there the Lordship of Jesus? I do 
not know a more healthful exhibit of Christian doctrine 
than this — that Paul should so vividly speak of the 
personal Christ, words afire with 'the reality of a life- 
union with Christ, figures piled upon figures to tell how 
dear is Christ in sweet intimateness of companionship, 



THE GOOD CONFESSION. IO5 

and yet that, just as often and just as truly,he should 
exalt Jesus as Lord, and unreservedly speak his glad 
obedience to such a Lord. Have you not lived out 
in yourself the reality of this truth, and found that you 
deeply needed it? Is it not one of the first true ex- 
periences in our turning- to God ? Do we not feel like 
saying humbly, just as Saul of Tarsus, blind and pros- 
trate, said, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" 
Do you not see more and more why the Lordship of 
Jesus Christ was such a distinct and constant note with 
Paul ? Why, it is only a little exaggeration of rhetoric 
to say that, in nearly every speech and writing of 
Paul's, he expresses the Lordship of Jesus. It is in- 
telligently and devoutly Lord, Lord, Lord, with him 
again and again. The truth is vital, in Paul's doctrine; 
it is luminously real in Paul's life. The true expression 
of the life of freedom in Christ, realized as men obey 
the truth, and the truth a life in Christ Himself — this 
is the reason that Paul distinctly calls himself "a bond- 
servant of Jesus Christ," and expressly glories in the 
signs of his bondage — "I bear branded on my body 
the marks of Jesus." Yes; it is a truth for to-day — 
the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Men never needed it 
more than they need it now. Now, when liberty is a 
birthright, an atmosphere, a privilege for all, we need 
to learn that it can be truly had and enjoyed only in 
obedience to truth, in obeying Jesus as Lord. It is 
only this that can save us from anarchies in society, 
and from the subtler bondage of an aesthetic selfishness. 
It goes signally to constitute the good confession that 
we can stand in the sight of many witnesses, and from 
the heart, definitely and gladly, after Paul, confess 
Jesus as Lord. 



106 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

3. The meaning of the good confession still pro- 
gresses in the Scriptures. It is now a different time, as 
well as another note. The first century of the Christian 
era is closing. The Gospel, to repeat Paul's splendid 
hyperbole, has been preached in all creation under 
heaven. There are churches of Christ everywhere — in 
Jerusalem, in Antioch, in Ephesus, in Corinth, in 
Rome: in provinces and in cities the faith of the Gospel 
has been established. The martyrs have become a 
noble army— these witnesses for Christ that have not 
counted their lives dear ; who before the block and in 
the arena and under torture have steadfastly confessed, 
"I am a Christian ; " who have died, glorifying God in 
this name. Paul has been beheaded. Peter has been 
crucified. John alone of the Apostles remains. And 
it is John that teaches a new meaning of the good con- 
fession. We may say that Peter emphasizes the 
Messiahship of Jesus, this office in fulfillment of Hebrew 
prophecy, an argument addressed to Jews. We may 
say that Paul sets forth specially the Lordship of Jesus, 
this authority against the idol gods of the heathen, an 
appeal to the consciences of the Gentiles. But it was 
reserved for John to enforce another idea in the con- 
fession of Jesus ; and again we shall see how definite, 
how varied, how vital the good confession is. 

We rightly call it a progress of meaning of the good 
confession. It has been wrapt up in Apostolic doctrine 
all along; but it is brought out, signalized, emphasized 
in a crisis of the Church's life. The fact results ac- 
cording to Bishop Butler's pregnant suggestion — "It 
might possibly be intended that events, as they come 
to pass, should open and ascertain the meaning of 
several parts of Scripture. " In a word, John's teach- 



THE GOOD CONFESSION. I07 

ing confronts a heresy. A spirit of antichrist was 
abroad. A subtle theory was spreading, that the person 
of Jesus Christ was not a real embodiment on earth. 
The heresy is called Docetism. It held that the body 
of the Saviour was only a phantom body. Holding 
matter to be necessarily corrupt, it taught that the Sa- 
viour lived and suffered and died only in appearance. 
John corners the false doctrine as he characterizes its 
advocates — "For many deceivers are gone forth into 
the world, even they that confess not that Jesus Christ 
cometh in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the anti- 
christ." 

For a true reason there is, in the doctrine of the 
last Apostle, an enforcement, an emphasis, of the fact 
that Jesus of Nazareth was a real appearance of history. 
It is a fact to be taught and confessed, against all 
tendencies to make Christ a mere influence and sen- 
timent in life. The Docetics denied that He really 
lived in the flesh. They thought that His spirit was 
too pure to come actually into contact with a mortal 
body. But, practically, the oldtime heresy still survives 
whenever we hear men slighting the Christ of the 
Gospel, and talking sentimentally about the ideal Jesus. 
All this sentimental admiration of Jesus, this conception 
of Him in fanciful lights, this dreamy inhalation of 
certain flowers of His doctrine — do you not notice how 
it all etherealizes the New Testament history, and 
makes the person of Jesus indefinite and unreal? Do 
you not see how it emasculates the vitality and the 
vigor of any satisfactory confession of Jesus? Nay, is 
there not danger, too, that the very orthodox faith in 
the Divinity of Christ may become half-blind to His 
real Humanity, and lose the good of that equal fact ? 



108 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

Does not often our argument that Jesus is Divine, and 
that He has been raised from the dead, and that His 
authority is expressed in the Apostolic Gospel, strangely- 
sound abstract and cold, without the closeness and 
warmth of the real human life of the Son of Mary? 

John's teaching strikes against all these tendencies. 
As the Docetics think to exalt the spiritual character 
of Jesus by denying that He actually lived in a body; 
or as certain modern sentimentalists idealize the Christ 
of history until there is left only a hazy image of His 
person ; or as the orthodox dogmatist preaches His 
Divinity and authority without any human flavors and 
sympathies, — the last Apostle teaches emphatically 
that Jesus was seen, heard, handled, and that this very 
life manifested bodily was the eternal life that dwelt 
with the Father. 

Mark how definite and beautiful is this two-sided 
emphasis of the good confession, according to John's 
teaching. Does it not leave the Humanity of Christ 
an abiding reality for men ? That life there in Judea 
and Galilee, nineteen hundred years ago, was all so real. 
He was a baby in His mother's arms. He was a boy 
in the Temple, about His Father's business. He be- 
came hungry by the long fast in the wilderness. He 
sat by Jacob's well, tired and thirsty. He lay asleep 
in the end of the ship while the storm was raging. He 
gladdened the wedding feast with His presence. He 
was an agreeable guest at the table of the publican. 
He enjoyed the home of Martha and Mary. He gathered 
little children in His arms, and prayed over them a 
blessing. He was touched with compassion as He saw 
the multitude hungry and faint. He wept over Jeru- 
salem. He wept at the tomb of Lazarus. He sweat, 



THE GOOD CONFESSION. IO9 

as it were, great drops of blood in the agony of Geth- 
semane. There could be no doubt that He was human. 
Hear him delight to call Himself the Son of Man. His 
humanity was real and perfect. Hear Him again and 
again speak of His example for men. He was a 
genuine man, growing up and learning obedience to 
God as His Father. Hear him over and over protesting 
His sinless character and His flawless obedience. He 
was truly human — conceived of the Holy Ghost, born 
of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate. 
And all this real humanness is a live sympathy of 
Heaven to-day with every struggling son and daughter 
of humanity. The High-Priest of our confession He 
is, touched with the feeling of our infirmities, able to 
succor the tempted because He once suffered in trial. 

All this real, warm, abiding Humanity, John puts 
it definitely and emphatically in the good confession. 
"Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit 
which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh 
is of God. " It was no phantom. It was no legendary 
person. It was no sentimental picture. It was no ab- 
stract official. John makes a double emphasis of the 
good confession. Jesus Christ is come in the flesh — 
and Jesus Christ is the Son of God. "Whosoever 
shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth 
in him, and he in God." "Whosoever denieth the 
Son, the same hath not the Father: he that confesseth 
the Son hath the Father also." It was a reality of 
Divinity. The length and breadth and depth and height 
of the truth can not be fully measured by language, not 
even by an inspired Word. The words for it, from 
Apostolic lips, are not rigid, though definite; are not 
exhaustive, though luminous. The Apostolic teaching 



110 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

of it is of history to experience. It was the life that 
was manifested, the eternal life which was with the 
Father. That life was real in history — Jesus Christ is 
come in the flesh ; so the believer confesses. But that 
life was not only of yesterday — Jesus Christ is the Son 
of God ; in that Sonship is the eternal life ; so the be- 
liever, confessing the Son, hath the Father also. It is 
a testimony of history that the disciple believes ; and 
it is a reality of experience that he confesses. 

" I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the 
living God"— this is the good confession. It was con- 
fessed by men as they came, in penitence and faith, 
to the waters of baptism. "Behold, here is water; 
what doth hinder me to be baptized?" exclaimed the 
^Ethiopian eunuch, "And Philip said, If thou be- 
lievest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he 
answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the 
Son of God." The passage, question and answer, 
interpolated though it be, yet interpolated early by 
copyists, proves what was really the custom of the early 
Church. The word of faith preached, reaching the 
heart, became a confession of the mouth — distinct, def- 
inite, significant — the good confession, preeminently. 
It was what we need to preach and to hear again in 
this age. See how good it may be for you ! See what 
a memory it may become to you ! See what a light it 
is for you, shining more and more unto the perfect day ! 

Is not its very simplicity a great good for you ? 
Salvation is preached to you ; and it is not a salvation 
of knotty points that you must unravel before you can 
be saved. God does not require you to accept a man- 
made creed to join His Church. This is all — this Divine 
creed. Believe in Jesus Christ as your Saviour, your 



THE GOOD CONFESSION. 1 1 I 

Teacher, your Lord. Pledge yourself to trust Him for 
forgiveness of your sins, and to learn of Him your daily 
duty, and steadfastly to obey Him. This is all. This 
is enough. You do not have to know everthing, you 
do not have to dissolve every doubt, before you can 
love and serve Christ. This good confession of heart 
and mouth is simple enough for a child understand- 
ingly to believe it and to speak it. But it means 
enough to engage the faith and devout study of a life- 
long believer. Here is a capital note of its goodness. 
The light that catches the baby's eye, and leads him 
to see all his wonderful little world, is the same light 
that shines on the grown man; but how much more 
now does he see, and how his sight of things sweeps 
the very heavens ! Christ is the Sun of righteousness, 
rising upon you with healing in His wings. The boy 
and the girl here may by faith behold this light of life, 
and they may begin to live in its brightness, and to see 
all the knowledge wherever it is shining. This is 
the beautiful simplicity of the good confession. It is 
simple as the sunlight is simple — clear, splendid, trans- 
cending human gaze, inexhaustible. It is simple for 
the little child that has faith. It is simple for some of 
you in those doubts and obstinate questionings that you 
would give the world to be able to settle. It is simple 
still for the long-tried believer, who has felt much and 
learnt much, and yet who, gray-haired and trembling, 
confesses from the depths of his heart, in a clear-eyed 
faith, "I know him whom I have believed." We con- 
fess Christ as the light of all truth, and the light of all 
duty, the light that shows us God, and the light that 
shows us man as well, and the light that reveals the glory 
of eternal life. We must begin with this faith, it we are 



I 1 2 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

to confess the Christ of Peter, Paul, and John. But 
this is all that the Gospel requires us to begin with r 
the beginning of faith in its soundness and its simplicity 
— simpler than the Nicene Creed, simpler than the 
so-called Apostles' Creed — this good confession con- 
fessed by Timothy in his boyhood, there in Lystra, as 
Paul held his hand in the sight of many witnesses. 
Definite the good confession is, distinct, a very form 
of sound words, a rigid landmark against any heresy 
of unbelief; and yet a confession to see more and more 
in — the revelation of God in Christ. We may be ever 
learning, and coming to a knowledge of its truth. It 
is sublime to stand before our fellow-men, and under 
the eyes of angels, and to confess, "I believe that 
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God," and 
then to go on keeping such a pledge of faith, and see- 
ing larger and larger meanings of Christ's Sonship to 
God. We study Him in history, but we study Him 
also in the universe. He is ever for us the Babe in His 
mother's arms, and the Boy in the Temple, and the 
Man on the Cross; but He is also the image of the 
invisible God, the first-born of all creation, in whom 
and unto whom all things were created, who is before 
all things, and in whom all things hold together. We 
believe that He taught on the Mount, and healed the 
sick, and raised the dead ; but we believe that in the be- 
ginning He was with God, and was God, the effulgence 
of His glory, and the very image of His substance, 
upholding all things by the word of His power. We 
confess that He is come in the flesh ; but as we see 
His Gospel redeeming men, regenerating society, 
transforming institutions and customs, comforting the 
broken-hearted, scattering the darkness of the grave,. 



THE GOOD CONFESSION. I I 5 

we confess, too, words of deep conviction whose mean- 
ing, making so much plain, is yet a mystery of light 
that shines elsewhere than we are now able to see — 
"We know that the Son of God is come, and hath 
given us an understanding, that we know him that is 
true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son 
Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life." 
I think that we are going to prove, more and more, 
the wisdom and timeliness of this good confession in 
modern, world-wide evangelism. We see how simple 
it is; we see how all inclusive it is. It shows how 
real the Gospel is, in its purpose and power on the 
heart. " Say not in thy heart, who shall ascend into 
heaven ? (that is, to bring Christ down :) or, who shall 
descend into the abyss (that is to bring Christ up from 
the dead)." Are you seeking salvation? Have you. 
sought for it, and yet have not found it ? Does con- 
version seem to you a very mysterious affair? Have 
you been taught that you must wait for some sudden 
and strange feeling as the sign of pardon from God? 
Have you prayed a great deal, and requested others 
to pray for you, that you might be saved, and still 
is the way dark, and do you begin to think of giving 
up in doubt and despair? Oh! it is unspeakably sad 
that ever such uncertainty should have been thrown 
upon the Gospel of Christ. There is nothing like it in 
the preaching of the Apostles. They did not go about 
teaching the people that salvation is to be assured in 
some definite and peculiar sensation, which is to be 
prayed for and waited for till it comes, though it be for 
weeks and months. No ; hear how real and simple 
and powerful the Gospel is. "The word is nigh thee, 
in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is the word of 



114 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

faith which we preach." Do not be trusting to your 
feelings by themselves. Do not be watching moods 
and frames of mind. Look into your heart, and see if 
the Word of the truth of the Gospel is there. Why, 
it is there, and in the hearts of hundreds like you who 
are sorry for your sins and willing to be saved if, as you 
say, you only could see how. This is the way — this 
word of faith become your faith, first in the heart and 
straightway in the mouth. " Because if thou shalt 
confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe 
in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou 
shalt be saved." Salvation is just this simple, and oh! 
just this real. Such a simple faith, your eye not on 
your poor guilty heart, but upon Jesus as your Saviour 
and Lord. It is thus simple, if the preachers, in Paul's 
style, will show it to be so. The Gospel preached, the 
Spirit of truth in all His power producing faith in the 
heart, and this faith promptly, definitely, gladly confessed 
— ah ! how our modern religious revivals need this good 
confession in all its scriptural distinctness and timeliness. 
Shall we hear it to-night ? Is there faith in your 
heart ? Do you believe in the crucified and risen Lord ? 
Then confess it with your mouth. Do you hesitate in 
fear ? Are you holding back because you are ashamed ? 
There is your trial. Your faith must come to the test, 
whether it be real and living. "In the sight of many 
witnesses " — here they are, your fellow-men, your own 
loved ones, beholding you, the angels of God looking 
down, the Lord Jesus waiting for you to confess His 
name. "The good confession," so simple, so beauti- 
ful, will you stand forth and courageously confess it, 
and begin the good fight of the faith, as God calls you 
to eternal life ? 



SERMON VI. 

The Baptism ok the 

believer. 



VI. 
THE BAPTISM OF THE BELIEVER. 

"13ut when they believed Philip preaching good tidings concerning 
the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, 
both men and women." — Acts viii. 12. 

In the evangelism of the Apostles, baptism stands 
out plain in word and practice. In preaching the Gos- 
pel, they preached baptism invariably. Throughout 
the Book of the Acts, which is the great book of con- 
versions, there is the note of baptism regularly, there 
is the picture of baptism regularly. It is somehow 
more than an incident. It appears plain, invariable, 
regular in doctrine and fact. Have you ever counted 
the times in which baptism occurs in the Book of the 
Acts ? Have you never observed the way in which it 
is mentioned ? Somehow the mention of it is natural. 
There seems to be a right place for it in evangelism. It 
comes up at the proper season, and duly occupies its 
place in the Gospel for the good of those that hear the 
Gospel. There is no doubt about it ; there is no dis- 
pute over it. It never appears disproportioned in pre- 
cept nor in practice. The mention of it every time 
will, if we fairly consider the facts, impress us that here 
is something assuredly a part of the Gospel, season- 
ably preached, seasonably practiced, under the bless- 
ing of God. 

Let us glance over some of these mentions of bap- 

(117) 



Il8 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

tism. "They then that received his word were bap- 
tized." It is the record of the remarkable Pentecost 
in Jerusalem, the day of the first preaching of the full 
Gospel of grace — hundreds baptized on that day. * ' Be- 
hold, water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? " 
It is the eager request of one man who had just heard 
the Gospel, and who is ready and glad to be baptized 
as he sees the opportunity. " Can any man forbid the 
water, that these should not be baptized, which have 
received the Holy Spirit as well as we?" It is the 
challenge of an Apostle. He beheld the Holy Spirit 
poured out upon Gentiles as well as Jews. It was time 
and place then for the baptism in water. Or turn and 
read of those first conversions in Europe, how invaria- 
ble and regular the baptisms : Lydia, for instance, 
"and when she was baptized, and her household ; " or 
the Philippian jailer, "and was baptized, he "and all 
his, immediately ; " or, a little later, a crowd of the 
citizens of Corinth, "And many of the Corinthians 
hearing believed, and were baptized." It is plain be- 
yond all denial that those first preachers of the Gospel 
preached baptism as a part of the Gospel invariably. 
It is equally plain that those who received the Gospel 
were invariably and promptly baptized. 

How is it to-day ? I mean it for a question that 
ought to be asked. I mean it for a question that must 
be answered. How is it to-day? It is a fair, needful, 
wise question concerning modern evangelism. What 
are the facts concerning the doctrine and practice of 
baptism in modern evangelism ? What place has bap- 
tism in modern revivals? What does the preacher say 
about it in the protracted meeting ? Is it heard of, is 
it seen, in the ten days' mission ? Apostolic evangel- 



THE BAPTISM OF THE BELIEVER. I I9 

ism and modern evangelism, as regards baptism — how 
do they compare with one another? I am concerned 
first simply for the fact of the frequency and regularity, 
the invariableness, the naturalness, the seasonableness 
of the Apostolic precept and practice of baptism. I 
want you to test my statement by what you know of 
evangelistic services to-day. They are numerous, and 
growing in number. They are being held all over this 
nation as never before. In cities, in towns, in villages, 
in churches and halls, in houses and in the streets, by 
ordained men, by unordained men and women, by de- 
nominational representatives who emphasize their free- 
dom of all denominations, by college-bred ministers and 
by unlettered proclaimers, by aged clergymen, and now 
by young men in the very heyday of their youth, by 
monks and by merchants, evangelistic services are con- 
ducted. Concerning all this evangelism I ask, has the 
Apostolic baptism its Apostolic place therein ? Not 
primarily what baptism is, nor what it is for, but simply 
the fact of baptism at all in its Apostolic repeatedness 
and timeliness — do we so hear and see baptism in the 
Gospel meetings of the year of our Lord 1891 ? 

Do I not speak the truth when I say that, in the 
majority of these services, as a rule, baptism is never 
heard at all, is never seen at all ? Such is the fact. 
Somehow baptism is forgotten or ignored. Nay, the 
most popular evangelist of the day declares that 
he purposely leaves baptism out of account. He is 
working evangelistically, with a union of denomina- 
tions, in an undenominational way ; there is difference 
of opinion over baptism ; there is controversy over it ; 
he feels it to be his duty, he says, not to mention it, 
but to leave the matter wholly for settlement between 



120 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

the convert and the denomination which the convert 
chooses to join. So it goes ; intentionally or uninten- 
tionally, knowingly or ignorantly, in the evangelism of 
the nineteenth century, for the most part, one does not 
hear the like of the New Testament language, not a 
syllable, not a hint, but a strange silence, as regards 
the characteristic Apostolic commandments and prac- 
tices of baptism. The tonsured monk, the godly mer- 
chant, the fervent Bible-reader, the Christian Endeavor 
youth, the Hallelujah lass, the earnest evangelist, as 
well as the ordained minister, as a rule, in meetings 
held for the conversion of sinners, are silent altogether 
concerning baptism. Mind you, I am not denoting 
baptism controversially, what is its action or its de- 
sign. I am speaking of baptism as a fact at all in evan- 
gelism to-day. I ask you to compare Apostolic evan- 
gelism and modern evangelism, as regards baptism. In 
modern evangelism has it, as a rule, its own doctrine 
in point of place, its own practice in point of time, as 
these appear in Apostolic evangelism ? I repeat the 
question, have we to-day, in world-wide preaching of 
the Gospel, in Kentucky, in New York, in India, in 
China, in the islands of the sea, the frequency and reg- 
ularity, the invariableness, the naturalness, the season- 
ableness of the Apostolic precept and practice of bap- 
tism? 

This strange lack of the Apostolic ministry of bap- 
tism must come a good deal from an under-estimate or 
misunderstanding of the place and meaning of baptism 
in the Apostolic ministry of the Gospel. I know there 
is danger of making too much of baptism. The sacer- 
dotal theory does make too much of it. We well 
recoil in horror from Augustine's doctrine that unbap- 



THE BAPTISM OF THE BELIEVER. 121 

tized infants are deprived of HeaVen. We should give 
no countenance to the hurried sprinkling of water on 
an unconscious dying man, in the hope of thus saving 
him from Hell. But there is danger of making too 
little of baptism. All this way of overlooking bap- 
tism in Protestant evangelism, and even talking of it 
slightingly — it results, we may be sure, from what 
Schaff calls "the low rationalistic view " prevalent on 
the subject. Now let us hear the Word of God, as it 
strikingly teaches a place and meaning of baptism in 
the Gospel of salvation. " But when they believed 
Philip preaching good tidings concerning the kingdom 
of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were bap- 
tized, both men and women." Here is the Gospel. 
Here is the Gospel preached. Here is the Gospel of 
God's kingdom and Jesus Christ's name. And here is 
baptism, in sense and dignity joined with this Gospel. 
Somehow there was something in such a Gospel 
preached that led these men and women naturally, 
promptly, immediately to be baptized. Do you ob- 
serve just where their baptism hinged ? f< When they 
believed Philip preaching good tidings, they were bap- 
tized. " Their faith, born of the Gospel, led them to 
their prompt baptism. It was the baptism of believ- 
ers. What they believed in the Gospel, the very 
reason of their believing it, their living faith moved 
•them to baptism. 

There must have been a spiritual good in that 
baptism of faith. Philip must have preached it in 
the good tidings. The men and women must have 
heard it and appreciated it so as to have been im- 
mediately baptized as a consequence of their faith. 
The Gospel of salvation, preached for faith and to 



122 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

faith, must show some meaning of salvation in baptism, 
and show it practically for the good of the one bap- 
tized, if his faith so directly issues in baptism. It is no 
exceptional Scripture. To it agree all the Scriptures 
of baptism. All of them that teach the mean- 
ing of baptism, teach it in some real relation 
to salvation. To it agree the Catholic creeds of 
Christendom. All of them confess a real relation of 
baptism to salvation. "Baptism doth now save us," 
is the explicit truth of God's Word. " I acknowledge 
one baptism for the remission of sins," is the unmis- 
takable note of the old Nicene creed. It is worth while 
knowing to-night the scriptural relation of baptism and 
salvation, why a believer should of course be baptized, 
in what sense the old creed associates baptism and the 
remission of sins. The Gospel proclaims a practical 
good to you, if you are baptized in faith. As you 
truly believe the good tidings concerning the kingdom 
of God and the name of jesus Christ, what teaches the 
Word as to the relation of baptism to your salvation, 
that you should therefore gladly and promptly be bap- 
tized ? In what sense does baptism save you, in what 
sense is it for the remission of sins ? Let the light of 
God's Word here help your faith, while it rebukes the 
ignorance and silence as to baptism in so much evan- 
gelistic work to-day. 

In what sense does baptism save us, in what sense is 
it for the remission of our sins ? According to the 
Scriptures, — 

I. In the sense of representation. It is a form, but 
it represents a reality of God and man. It is a mate- 
rial element, but it represents a spiritual presence. It 
is a bodily action, but it represents a spiritual will. It 



THE BAPTISM OF THE BELIEVER. 123 

is absurd to classify it with the washings of the Jew 
ish law, "carnal ordinances imposed until a time of 
reformation." It is ignorance to call it "a mere out- 
ward rite," or "only an external bodily act," and to 
put it on a level with ceremonies of human organiza- 
tions. No; baptism, belonging to the Gospel of truth 
and grace, is a spiritual institution, representing a real- 
ity of God and man, or it is lower even than a heathen 
fetich. But, belonging to a spiritual dispensation, it 
is a spiritual institution representatively, as it both 
beautifully and helpfully pictures to a penitent believer 
his salvation in the name of Christ. "And now why 
tarriest thou ? arise, and be baptized, and wash away 
thy sins, calling on his name." So Saul, penitent and 
praying, hears Ananias's urgent exhortation. The 
water of his baptism would appropriately represent the 
washing away of his sins in the blood of Jesus Christ. 
So, too, Paul teaches that baptism is a symbol of the 
death and resurrection of Christ. To be "baptized 
into Christ," is to be " baptized into his death." The 
baptism involves a burial, a burial "with him through 
baptism into death," and to this end, " that like as 
Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of 
the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life." 
In both of these Scriptures, where baptism is a repre- 
sentation of salvation — in the first, the material ele- 
ment furnishing the figure ; in the second, the bodily 
action becoming the symbol — the representation is not 
merely a poetic figure nor an ornamental symbol. It 
is the representation of salvation in reality — the repre- 
sentation of a real cleansing from sin, the representa- 
tion of a real death to sin, and of a real resurrection to 
a new life — this spiritual realness alone giving sense 



124 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

and propriety to baptism in its element and action. 
There is a real presence and power of God in baptism : 
there is a real experience of man in baptism. ' ' Having 
cleansed it by the washing of water with the word," 
says Paul again, making baptism a picture of purifica- 
tion, and so representing it because something more 
than water is there — the very Word of God in all its 
spirit and life, being there. "Having been buried 
with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised 
with him through faith in the working of God, who 
raised him from the dead," once more says the Apostle, 
making baptism a figure of burial and resurrection, 
and so representing it because something more than 
bodily action is there — the very energy of God, in 
which the baptized man trusts, being there. 

2. In the sense of confirmation. It is a form, a 
material element, a bodily action ; but it is the con- 
firmation of the forgiveness of sins. The records of 
baptism in the New Testament would be absurd unless, 
while narrating the regularity, the promptness, the 
eagerness of the baptisms, they prove, directly and in- 
directly, that baptism was to a penitent believer a con- 
firmation of salvation. Do not the Scriptures here 
carry such an inevitable conviction to an unprejudiced 
reading ? Look again at that remarkable scene in Je- 
rusalem on the day of Pentecost. The plain history 
is, " They then that received his word were baptized." 
And the plain word of Peter was, "Repent, and be 
baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ 
unto the remission of your sins." Or hear the com- 
mission of the Lord Himself — "Go ye into all the 
world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation : 
he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." Put 



THE BAPTISM OF THE BELIEVER. 12$ 

that alongside of Ananias's exhortation to Saul, as he 
finds Saul repenting and praying — "And now why tar- 
riest thou ? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy 
sins, calling on his name. " Baptism and salvation 
coupled in the world-wide commission, baptism and 
forgiveness heard together in Apostolic preaching, and 
penitent believers universally, readily, gladly baptized 
— what was their baptism but a real confirmation of a 
real salvation in a real experience of their lives? 

3. In the sense of association. It is a form, a ma- 
terial element, a bodily action ; but it is the real asso- 
ciation of the salvation of one with the salvation of 
others, a real association of you and me in our salva- 
tion with others in their salvation, as we altogether 
have a real union and communion with God. .So again 
reads the great commission, " Make disciples of all 
the nations ; " and this discipleship, in its making, 
realizes in baptism the highest fellowship of which man 
is capable — "baptizing them into the name of the 
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Your 
or my salvation is not in selfish isolation. It is organic, 
with one another, and through one another. We Gen- 
tiles, verily, " are fellow-heirs, and fellow-members of 
the body, and fellow-partakers of the promise in Christ 
Jesus through the Gospel." In the true and profound 
sense, our salvation is in "the Church," which is "the 
body " of Christ, ' ' the fullness of him that filleth all in 
all." It is, of course, according to the sound Protest- 
ant idea and against the Romish notion, our relation to 
Christ that determines our relation to the Church, not 
our relation to the Church that determines our relation 
to Christ ; but it would be more accurately scriptural 
to say that in our relation to Christ is determined 



126 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

necessarily our relation to the Church. The salvation 
in Christ is a fellowship of salvation, and it is a fellow- 
ship of salvation according as He is "himself the Sa- 
viour of the body." This principle of association is 
impressively stated by Paul. To be baptized into the 
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy 
Spirit, to be baptized into Jesus Christ, to be baptized 
into His death, to be baptized into His name, carries 
in it an association of the blessings of salvation. "For 
in one Spirit," says Paul impressively, giving the 
necessary reason of the organic relations of the re- 
deemed, and stating first the vital, spiritual element 
which enveloped them when baptized, "For in one 
Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether 
Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free ; and were all 
made to drink of one Spirit." Salvation thus viewed 
as a blessing organically, in a body, in a Church, in a 
kingdom, is taught by our Lord in His startling words 
to Nicodemus. The note of a spiritual salvation He 
unmistakably gives along with the note of a baptism 
in water, which associates the salvation of one with the 
salvation of others in the kingdom of God — "Except 
a man be born of water and the Spirit, he can not enter 
into the kingdom of God." Again, it is of those who 
received the word of Peter, and were baptized, that the 
fact is immediately narrated: "And there were 
added unto them in that day about three thousand 
souls;" and this significant predicate, "added unto 
them," has the light of its vital meaning a little fur- 
ther on in the verse, "And the Lord added to them," 
or "together," "day by day those that were being 
saved." The association of penitent believers by bap- 
tism was in a process of salvation. 



THE BAPTISM OF THE BELIEVER. \2J 

4. In the sense of consummation. According to 
the Apostolic ministry, it was penitent believers that 
were baptized. It was not unconscious infants. It 
was not unawakened sinners. Baptism was not the 
first and only step in the way of salvation. Again and 
again, in varied ways, are hearing, faith, repent- 
ance, confession, mentioned as facts in the way of sal- 
vation. In no one aspect is salvation moving to a con- 
summation more strikingly set forth than in the doc- 
trine of it as a conversion, especially now in the accu- 
rate renderings of the Revised Version. The Script- 
ures speak of turning, and becoming as little children ; 
of perceiving with the eyes, hearing with the ears, un- 
derstanding with the heart, and turning again to be 
healed ; of believing, and turning to the Lord ; of re- 
penting, and turning to God. But the Scriptures 
never speak of being baptized and turning. For a 
very apparent reason. Hearing, understanding, believ- 
ing, repenting, each of these, all of these, implied in 
some general mention of conversion, while again 
spoken of specifically, now one, now another, in con- 
nection with conversion, leaving yet some aspect of 
conversion to be explained beyond hearing, beyond un- 
derstanding, beyond faith, beyond repentance, simply, 
according to Apostolic teaching and practice, leaves 
baptism as the final step, the final fact, of conver- 
sion. Fully confirming this sense of the consum- 
mation of salvation in baptism, is the fact that 
salvation is so specifically mentioned with faith, 
repentance, confession, viewed as steps in the way of 
salvation. The Scriptures are numerous. "Every 
one that believeth on him shall receive remission of 
sins." "Repentance and remission of sins should be 



128 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

preached in his name." "With the mouth confession 
is made unto salvation. " The Scriptures are numerous, 
various, emphatic — too many to be indicated here — 
faith and life, repentance and remission, confession and 
salvation. But are we to think that the Scriptures 
speak in vain when they say in so many words, ' ' Which 
also after a true likeness doth now save you, even 
baptism"? If with faith, with repentance, with con- 
fession, salvation is connected, these going before bap- 
tism, and if with baptism also, coming after these, sal- 
vation is coupled, then salvation must have in baptism 
a real, not a fictitious, consummation, and this con- 
summation is real because salvation has a real, not a 
fictitious, existence in faith, repentance, confession, as 
the antecedents of baptism. 

Is not this Apostolic teaching of baptism clear, be- 
yond all misunderstanding ? If you come to baptism 
in the right way, it represents your salvation in a real 
experience of the eternal redemption obtained by the 
Son of God. If you come to baptism in the right 
way, it confirms your salvation as you began to know- 
it in the work of the Spirit of truth in your heart. 
If you come to baptism in the right way, it associates 
your salvation blessedly with the salvation of others. 
If you come to baptism in the right way, it consum- 
mates your salvation as a crisis of the present, which 
gives assurance and hope of your salvation daily in all 
your faith and obedience of the future. 

We have, therefore, two lessons to learn about the 
Apostolic baptism — its spiritual atmosphere and its prac- 
tical urgency. "Behold, water! what doth hinder me 
to be baptized? " was the eager question of an inquirer 
who had just heard the same Philip preach Jesus. But 



THE BAPTISM OF THE BELIEVER. I2g 

we may be sure that he saw something more than 
water. We may be sure that he had heard of something 
besides water. There was a spiritual atmosphere all 
about him, as he spoke aloud his urgent inquiry. There 
was something more than water in his view and in his 
experience. Over the water there would be the sacred 
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Spirit. Under the water there would be the reconcil- 
ing death of Jesus Christ. In the water there would 
be a penitent believer, calling on the name of the Lord ; 
and in this believer's baptism there would be a pres- 
ence, more than water, enveloping his mind and heart, 
the light and strength of his obedience, and his re- 
freshment daily, according to the precious Scripture, 
"In one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, 
whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and 
were made to drink of one Spirit." It was a baptism 
in water. It was the baptism of a penitent believer 
in water. It was the baptism of a penitent believer in 
water, into the name of the Father and of the Son and 
of the Holy Spirit. It was the baptism of a penitent 
believer in water, into the name of the Father and of 
the Son and of the Holy Spirit, as it was equally a 
baptism of him in the Spirit, according to the Spirit's 
power of conviction and sanctification. 

So large, and free, and real, and full was the salva- 
tion of which the inquirer heard. Oh ! let us open our 
eyes to behold this salvation, as it shines in the light of 
God's own Word. I am afraid that we have been 
impoverishing our minds and hearts by not appreciating 
all the doctrine of salvation in the Scriptures. It is a 
salvation in "hope of eternal life, which God, who can 
not lie, promised before times eternal ; but in his own 



130 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

seasons manifested his word in the message. M It is 
God who saves, and He ' ' saved us, and called us with 
a holy calling, not according to our works, but accord- 
ing to his own purpose and grace, which was given us 
in Christ Jesus before times eternal, but hath now been 
manifested by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus 
Christ, who abolished death, and brought light and in- 
corruption to light through the gospel." It is a salva- 
tion of God, whose blessing for man speaks in this real 
truth to man — "God was in Christ reconciling the 
world unto himself, not reckoning unto them their tres- 
passes." It is a salvation that large, and free, and real, 
and full, because, again, "God is the Saviour of all 
men, specially of them that believe ;" or, "The grace 
of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men. " 
There it was in the Gospel, free and real, brought to 
men for them to hear it and receive it and live every 
day in the experience of it. There it was in the Gos- 
pel, as the Holy Spirit brought it home to the minds 
and hearts of men in the precepts and promises of the 
Gospel. It was the very salvation of God which the 
inquirer heard Philip preach in preaching Jesus. It 
was a real salvation upon him and in him, as he heard 
it with a hungry heart. It was a real salvation upon 
him and in him more and more as he heard it, without a 
doubt, eagerly in draughts of living faith. It was a 
real salvation upon him and in him, enlightening his 
mind, renewing his heart, invigorating his will for all 
righteous living. Verily it was salvation upon him and 
in him, which, under Philip's preaching, evoked the 
cry, "Behold, water! what doth hinder me to be bap- 
tized." Baptism, not as a thing of magic, manipu- 
lated by priestly hands for some mysterious good — 



THE BAPTISM OF THE BELIEVER. 131 

that makes too much of it ; not as a mere rite nor bare 
symbol, empty of any spiritual good — that makes too 
little of it : but baptism in the authority of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, as a due part o f the world-wide Gospel, 
in a spiritual light, with a spiritual power, with a spirit- 
ual blessing — for this the penitent, prayerful, glad be- 
liever went down into the water, where Philip baptized 
him. There his salvation was really and beautifully 
represented. There his salvation was really and help- 
fully confirmed. There his salvation was really and 
blessedly associated with the salvation of others. There 
his salvation was really and uniquely consummated, as 
a memory and motive for all subsequent faith and duty 
in the daily experience of his salvation in the daily 
process of his obedience to his Saviour and Lord. 

The Apostolic baptism could but be urgent. Is it 
not plain why it was invariably preached in the Apos- 
tolic Gospel, and why believers were promptly and 
gladly baptized ? It all meant that salvation was 
urgent. The herald of the Gospel went everywhere, 
proclaiming, " Behold, now is the acceptable time; 
behold, now is the day of salvation." It was no fiction. 
It was no guess-work. It was a living reality of God, 
as He called to men in the Son of His love. It was so 
real and plain that, as we read those conversions in the 
Book of the Acts, never once do we read of any agon- 
izing delays of salvation, never once a weary waiting 
for salvation, never once a disappointment as to salva- 
tion, when there was hunger and inquiry for it. Read 
those conversions — thousands at a time, one at a time, 
crowds in a city, a pilgrim alone on his journey ; all 
sorts and conditions of men, priests, soldiers, philoso- 
phers, tradesmen ; both sexes, all ages, the man, the 



132 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

woman, the child ; all grades of persons, the murderer, 
the drunkard, the idolater, the thief, harlots and adul- 
terers, the devotee at prayer, fathers and mothers as 
they read the Scriptures, sons and daughters as they 
were trained in the truth and looked for more light ' r 
everywhere, in Judea, Samaria, Galatia, Macedonia, 
Achaia, Italy, in the capital cities of the world, every- 
where, from Jerusalem and round about even unto Illyri- 
cum — and every time in those conversions the salvation 
of the Gospel is seen real and urgent. It is preached 
to the hearer, offered to him, pressed upon him, 
preached in sweet promises, and preached in terrible 
warnings. Listen to Paul as he tells us how real and 
urgent the salvation, and why really and urgently he 
preached it. " For the love of Christ constraineth us ; 
because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore 
all died. " So real and powerful was the death of Christ 
for all men, as it wrought the death of all men to sin 
potentially in His death for sin. That was the meas- 
ure of Christ's love, and the real, working force of 
Christ's love ; and Paul went about preaching it 
urgently, holding out the high hope, ''And he diedjor 
all, that they which live should no longer live unto 
themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and 
rose again." So great and real and urgent was the sal- 
vation of the Gospel, to hear it, to receive it, to know 
it, to enjoy it, to live in it to-day and forever. It was 
not baptism that was first urgent. It was the free, real 
salvation, as consummated in the death of Christ, and 
preached to the whole creation, that was first urgent. 
It was this salvation that made every man so responsi- 
ble. Henceforth to disbelieve that would be the great 
sin. The Spirit of truth would convict the world of 



THE BAPTISM OF THE BELIEVER. 1 33 

sin for not believing on the Son of God as "the Saviour 
of the world," the Lamb of God "which taketh 
away the sin of the world." The urgent salva- 
tion, free, real, preached, offered, pressed home upon 
men in the Gospel, this is what they heard as they re- 
sisted not the Spirit of truth, this they received in their 
hearts as they duly believed it ; and in this living faith 
they gladly went down into the waters of baptism. 
For their baptism, glad, prompt, eager, was, according 
to God's Word, a beautiful and appropriate step in the 
process of their obedience, in which, as the outflow 
and proof of a living faith, they should receive and 
know more and more of the real salvation, whose fore- 
taste and whose end should be eternal life. 

Let us restore this Apostolic baptism in world-wide 
evangelism to-day. Do not make too much of it ; but 
do not ignore it nor slight it. Do not make too little 
of it ; but preach and practice it in Apostolic simplicity 
and beauty. We shall certainly see its place and its 
good in the Gospel, as we preach the Gospel of salva- 
tion in all of its real good for humanity. It is for you 
to hear the Gospel of your salvation. Christ died for 
you. God was in Christ reconciling you unto Himself, 
loving you, forgiving you ; and you hear this very 
moment the word of reconciliation. Do you believe 
it ? Will you open your heart to it ? Will you receive 
it in a childlike faith, this Gospel of your salvation ? 
Then it is time for you to be baptized. I preach the 
truth to you faithfully and helpfully. It is time for you 
to be baptized, according to the old Apostolic baptism. 
If you believe in your heart the good tidings of the 
kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, be bap- 
tized. The salvation of the Gospel is urgent for your 



134 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

hearing and believing it. As you hear and believe it, 
oh ! tell me, does not its urgency move you to confess 
it and live evermore in knowledge of it, in daily peace 
and hope ? It is time for you to be baptized. Your 
baptism will not only beautifully represent your salva- 
tion. It will not only helpfully confirm your salvation. 
It will not only blessedly associate your salvation 
with the salvation of others. But, mark ! — it will 
consummate your salvation in the obedience of 
your faith. Your obedience of faith in baptism will 
be the type, the beginning, the ideal of all your obedi- 
ence throughout your life, while you realize and enjoy 
more and more all the blessing of salvation in fellow- 
ship with Jesus Christ our Lord, in hope of eternal 
glory. 



SERMON VII. 

Conversion of young 
People. 



VII. 
CONVERSION OF YOUNG PEOPLE. 

" And that from a babe thou hast known the sacred writings which 
are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ 
Jesus." — II, Tim. Hi. if. 

It is no longer a novelty, a strain of interest, for the 
pulpit to set its heart and eye on the young people 
present, and to preach the Gospel specially to them 
while speaking specially in behalf of them. What are 
the facts? Why, some of the finest activities of civil- 
ization are centering more and more on child-life. Hun- 
dreds of wise persons are thinking of the child — its 
nature, its needs, its promise — where one thought a cen- 
tury ago. Hundreds of philanthropists are working 
for the child where an age ago no one worked. Does 
a child need protection, sometimes very special protec- 
tion, from the greed of capital, and even from the self- 
ishness of its parents ? The hand of the law has been 
raised in its behalf, and forever forbids that its little 
body shall be pinched and dwarfed by hard, unhealth- 
ful labor in factory or mine. Can a child learn early, 
and can it learn rapidly ? can knowledge be broken up 
small enough for its bird-like mouth? And Froebel 
with the spirit of Christ saying, " Come, let us live for 
the children," answers with his wonderful kindergarten. 
Can a child be taught truth by stories, by picture, by 

song ? And the genius of fiction and of art and of 

(137) 



I38 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

poetry answers with the heart and glory of their work. 
Can a child be brought to Christ, and live as one of 
His disciples ? And surely the medieval nightmares 
of theology, with their falsities about children, pass 
away, and the Sunday-school arises in rebuke of scho- 
lastic errors, and gathers the lambs to its bosom, and 
teaches them the way of the Lord. 

The facts are luminous, radiant with hope for the 
good of humanity. The cry of Hagar's child, thirst- 
ing and dying, is heard, and eyes of love are seeing 
wells of water, and bringing cheer and refreshment. 
We are beginning to see to-day that little maidens can 
be touched by human want and woe, and can become 
a band of a hundred to do good where the Lord opens 
the door. Strong men and women are ready and glad 
to be fulfilling the oldtime prophecy that a little child 
shall lead them ; and we appreciate as never before 
what the Master meant when He set a little child in the 
midst of His disciples, as He taught them concerning 
His Kingdom. 

All of this growing interest, this large service, in 
behalf of the young, we want thus to appreciate in the 
light of the Bible — its memories, its precepts, its prom- 
ises concerning children. This interest is of God. It 
is the fruitage of the Gospel of His Son. Is there any 
doubt of it? Or, if there is no doubt of it, yet is 
there a lack of full, positive, hearty appreciation of it ? 
Are any of us practically skeptical about the conver- 
sion and spiritual training of youth ? Whenever your 
boy comes to you, and of his own accord proposes to 
confess Christ publicly, does it trouble you, and do 
you put him off with vague excuses ? Do any of us 
hold to that old notion, and do we unhesitatingly, un- 



CONVERSION OF YOUNG PEOPLE. 1 39 

blushingly proclaim it? "Oh, I believe in waiting un- 
til children are grown, so that they will know what 
they are doing, and can choose for themselves." Is 
the secret of this unbelief and indifference that, in the 
Bible, in the New Testament, especially in the Book 
of the Acts, the great book of conversions, there appears 
no distinct instances of child conversion, no express 
mention of the conversion of one by one, nor one after 
the other, nor many of them together, while the con- 
version of adults seems to be absolutely the rule, 
whether of one man or one woman, or of a large class 
or some vast crowd in a triumphant day? 

Let us look all around the subject, and know the 
truth and mark our duty. Yes ; as we read the his- 
tory of the progress of the Gospel under Apostolic 
preaching, it seems that adult conversion is absolutely 
the rule. The children are out of sight. They make 
no clear-cut, familiar figure whatever. They do not 
sit in the front pews nor around the pulpit as Peter 
preaches on the day of Pentecost. They do not come 
tripping along with the visitors to Paul's hired house in 
Rome, thirty years afterwards, to be taught specially 
the Way of salvation. Nowhere do we read of " Chil- 
dren's Meetings," "Children's Day," "Children's 
Hour." Are the little ones forgotten ? Does not God 
hear their cry ? 

Stop. Let us read more carefully, both on the 
lines and between the lines. Read again Peter's ser- 
mon in Acts ii., — the first complete, full, authoritative 
proclamation of the Gospel to mankind. The children 
are not forgotten. They are distinctly mentioned. 
" For to you is the promise, and to your children/' as 
well as "to all that are afar off." The promise, the 



140 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

promise of the remission of sins and the gift of the 
Holy Spirit — it was to those Jews standing there, 
trembling and convicted, and it was also to their chil- 
dren, as well as to the Gentile world. Let no preacher, 
in a controversial spirit, slur that phrase — " to your 
children." It does not require to be emptied of 
its plain, scriptural meaning, in any supposed interests 
of doctrinal harmony. It is not a rhetorical generality 
for posterity, in a vague, indefinable sense. It is 
primarily specific. It means first the children, the liv- 
ing children, of those living Jewish parents. That 
would be the only way a Jew could first understand 
the language. It would be altogether natural for him 
to understand the words in this sense. A man who 
was taught that " children are a heritage of the Lord ;" 
who was commanded to teach diligently to his children 
the words of the law ; who knew from his Bible that 
God's very purpose in the origin and propagation of 
the race from one pair of creatures, was that there 
might be "a godly seed ; " who remembered the poetic 
note of his religion, "O Lord God, thou art my trust 
from my youth ; " who believed that Jehovah was " a 
father of the fatherless/' — that man would rather have 
been astonished if a blessing of Heaven came to him 
which was not also promised to his children. "For 
to you is the promise, and to your children" — we may 
be sure that every Jewish father went home that day, 
rejoicing that, of course, his children were included in 
this promise of the salvation of the Gospel, now 
preached for the first time in the name of the crucified 
and risen Lord. 

But while we are not to dilute the phrase, "your 
children," we are not to stretch it nor make a blind 



CONVERSION OF YOUNG PEOPLE. I4I 

fetich of it. The promise was to Jewish children. It 
was also to Gentile children. It was specifically to all 
of them in their tender years. But, while it was to 
them as children, it was theirs meaningly and con- 
sciously, as they accepted it, understood it, be- 
lieved it, appropriated it. They did not have to wait 
until they were grown before they could rejoice in it. 
No fancied scripturality of adult conversion alone 
should be allowed to interpret the words, ' ' your chil- 
dren," as only a convenient expression of future de- 
scendants, who will be expected first to become far 
perverted in sin before the Gospel can begin its work 
of converting them to righteousness. The words in- 
volve the idea of posterity, generations yet unborn ; 
but that very idea is involved because the salvation is 
promised first to the young as young. Children they 
were, children they were, growing up, the children of 
parents who were becoming Christians under a new and 
better covenant ; and it was the blessing of the Gospel 
that children, too, should have part in the covenant, 
not because of bare flesh and blood kinship, but as, in 
this organic relationship of the family, an institution of 
God, they should hear the Word, should learn the Way, 
should, without any established age, but as soon as 
possible, intelligently confess the good confession, and 
be baptized. 

This is the light that has always been in God's 
Word as regards the conversion of children. It has 
always been there, ready to break out, right there in 
the Book of the Acts, if only our eyes are thoughtfully 
open to behold it, instead of being blinded amid the 
dust of theological controversy. The children are not 
forgotten. They are blessed with their faithful parents. 



142 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

That is the sweet lesson of household conversions re- 
corded in the Book of the Acts. Five households we 
read of, who turned to God under Apostolic preach- 
ing. It was no unusual event. It was not a surprise 
then, as, alas ! it would be now. The record of it is 
too natural, too matter-of-course, too beautiful just in 
its place, for such a conversion to be some novelty of 
Gospel application or some astonishing development of 
human life. Five instances of household conversions 
— Gentiles as well as Jews — one in Judea, two in Phil- 
ippi, two in Corinth — why, it is altogether reasonable 
to conclude, from these typical instances of time, 
place, persons, incidents, that if all the cases of 
household conversions occurring during the Apostolic 
ministry had been recorded, the Book of the Acts 
would not contain them ! 

The record of them, the very style, in its minute 
words, is a mighty truth against two ecclesiastical ex- 
tremes of the ages — I mean, against Paedobaptists on 
the one side, and Baptists on the other. There can be 
no logic of infant baptism in these household con- 
versions. Many Paedobaptist scholars candidly admit 
this lack of proof, and candidly concede that such a 
practice is an unnecessary, far-fetched inference, if 
based upon these Scriptures. In four of the five in- 
stances, expressly so, where any fact is predicated of 
the households besides their baptisms, or in connection 
with their baptisms, it necessarily implies conscious, 
intelligent activity on their part. Cornelius, and his 
household, as he himself said, "all here present in the 
sight of God, to hear all things that have been com- 
manded thee of the Lord," spoke with tongues, and 
magnified God. The baptized Philippian jailer "re- 



CONVERSION OF YOUNG PEOPLE. 1 43 

joiced greatly with all his house, having believed in 
God." '* Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed 
in the Lord with all his house." Paul baptized also in 
Corinth "the household of Stephanas ; " and Paul 
writes of the house of Stephanas that " they have set 
themselves to minister unto the saints." 

But if these facts told of these household conver- 
sions and baptisms nullify any proof or obligation of in- 
fant baptism, other facts ought to wake up the Bap- 
tists, and cause them to see what one-sided stress 
they have put on individual, if not also on adult, conver- 
sion. If Paedobaptists must acknowledge the absence 
of scriptural authority for the waning institution of in- 
fant baptism, Baptists must confront the facts, and ex- 
plain and appreciate the naturalness, the frequency, 
the emphasis of household, as well as individual, con- 
versions in the Book of the Acts. Of the eighteen or 
twenty distinct instances of Apostolic conversions, five 
are expressly, luminously, household conversions. 
How is this ? Why do the Apostles aim so directly at 
this end ? Why do they so promptly and easily speak 
so inclusively ? "Words, whereby thou shalt be saved, 
thou and all thy house " — " Believe on the Lord Jesus, 
and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house" — how 
usual this sounds, how familiarly expectant ! And 
every time there was no disappointment. The Gospel 
was preached, and the households believed, rejoicing 
in salvation. That there were children in those homes, 
old enough to believe and confess Christ intelligently, 
is altogether reasonably concluded. Nay, the sixth 
household, logically included in these Apostolic con- 
versions, felicitously illustrates this fact. It is the logic of 
our text. Paul, on his first missionary journey, preach- 



144 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

ing the Gospel in Lystra amid persecutions — a Jewish 
family, grandmother, mother, grandson, Lois, Eunice, 
Timothy, Timothy then a boy — again, the whole fam- 
ily becoming Christians under the Gospel, the child 
Timothy confessing the good confession along with 
faithful Lois and Eunice — so glows another beautiful 
instance of household conversions. 

A weighty, significant lesson it all is for the Baptists. 
The fact convicts them of not caring enough for the 
children. It is a poor, pitiful triumph of debate just 
to prove the unnaturalness, the uselessness, the need- 
lessness of infant baptism, and stop there, as if our 
duty is done. On the contrary, the real duty then really 
begins. There is a discharge of spiritual obligation to 
children, bound upon Baptists as well as Paedobaptists. 
It is not scriptural to wait until children are grown before 
teaching them the Way and exhorting them to turn to 
the Lord. It is not scriptural to address the Gospel 
exclusively to adults, with never a direct, exultant, 
hopeful word to the young. It is not scriptural to ex- 
pect conversions of successive generations only as each 
one takes place in lonely isolation of manhood, under 
an abstract singularity of influences, with no reference 
to what has gone before him in point of time nor what 
has been done for him in virtue of environment. It is 
not scriptural to look upon the little ones as without 
God, and without hope in the world. It is not script- 
ural to hold a vague theory that somehow infants, dy- 
ing in infancy, go to Heaven spotless, guiltless, never 
having sinned, and then to work a rigid practice of 
preaching salvation to grown sinners, while all the 
time, both with a loose theory and a looser practice, 
making and taking little account of boys and girls 



CONVERSION OF YOUNG PEOPLE. 14$ 

growing up, five years old, seven years old, ten years 

old, who are beginning to know sin in power and guilt, 

and to know right and wrong in conflict, and to know 

responsiblity in conscience, and to know God 

in the simple faith and healthy fear of a child's 

heart. 

Let us wake up on this question, and think and act 

according to the Word of God concerning childhood. 
Let there be a revision of our knowledge, if haply thus 
there may come a revision of our practice. We may 
well ask ourselves how it was, according to the Apos- 
tolic ministry of the Gospel, that the faith of grand- 
parents descended so regularly, so beautifully, to the 
second and third generations. We may ponder on the 
words of the Apostle of love, as, in old age, he writes 
an Epistle to a Christian woman, and says not only, 
"unto the elect lady," but naturally, familiarly, "and 
her children," and then pens a congratulatory note con- 
cerning some of the children whom he had met away 
from their home — " I rejoice greatly that I have found 
certain of thy children walking in truth." We may 
still wonder as, in the same Epistle, the aged writer, 
conveying a Christian salutation, delicately allows it to 
be worded in the name of the younger members of 
that family — "The children of thine elect sister salute 
thee." We may rightly muse, in holy imagination, 
over that exquisite picture of Apostolic fellowship 
where the faces of the children, too, are wet with tears, 
in the company of disciples standing on the sea coast of 
Tyre — "And they all, with wives and children, brought 
us on our way, till we were out of the city : and kneei- 
ng down on the beach, we prayed, and bade each 
other farewell." The children, kneeling around Paul in 



I46 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

prayer ! Do you suppose they ever forgot that scene, 
or forgot Paul? 

According to the Word of God — let us so think and 
act concerning the children. Have we heard the doc- 
trine of Jesus ? Is it anything for us, and to us ? 
Does it teach us faith and duty as regards childhood ? 
Does it engender a spirit towards children which we 
dare not lack, and the possession of which, as Christ 
had it, insures a whole round of thought, study, hope, 
service for them, as we lead a whole round of life both 
for them and with them? " Except ye turn, ;.nd be- 
come as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into 
the kingdom of heaven " — " Whoso shall receive one 
such little child in my name receiveth mr "— " See 
that ye despise not one of these little ones ; for I say 
unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold 
the face of my Father which is in heaven " — " It is not 
the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of 
these little ones should perish" — these sayings of 
Christ, have we ever fully appreciated them, fathomed 
their depths, scaled their heights, measured their 
lengths and breadths ? Are these words, so unique, 
so generous, regulative forces in our live**, and do we 
feel their effects whenever we look at a little child ? 
Grant that they are ideals, that they do not depict 
the actual character of all children, that they only 
indicate the capacities and possibilities of every child. 
Just so. Then what do we find that these hopeful 
ideals make us habitually think about childhood, 
and what habitually and hopefully do in its behalf? 
Do the high, solemn, luminous, divine moments in our 
life ever come when, in the spirit of Christ, imitating 
Christ, we put our hands on little children, and pray 



CONVERSION OF YOUNG PEOPLE. I47 

for them — aye, pray for ourselves, too, as the light of 
truth illumines our hearts, and thrills us with its glory 
— " For of such is the kingdom of God " ? 

A sublime standard, indeed! Well, if the Kingdom 
of God is rightly theirs in spirit and germ, if the little 
ones are so dear to Christ, if He darkly warns you 
and me not to cause one of these little ones that be- 
lieve on Him to stumble, what are we parents, elders, 
Sunday-school teachers doing that the Kingdom of God 
may be the child's growingly and knowingly ? There is 
a large, sweet, serious, beautiful, hopeful duty that we 
all owe to the children, as we hear the ideal words of 
Christ, as we behold the household conversions of Apos- 
tolic ministry. This teaching of Christ, these Apos- 
tolic conversions, agree with all the rest, so much else, 
of the Bible as it speaks variedly for the young and to 
the young. Are we slighting the fact, disbelieving it, 
ignoring it, beating around the duty, and losing a great 
blessing, because of rigid theological notions ? Do we 
hold that children have no covenant relation whatever 
to Christ ? Are we to entertain some hard and fast 
theory of regeneration which sees no good of the Gos- 
pel for a child until it undergoes a certain marked exer- 
cise, when, and only when, we straightway call it " re- 
generated, " and in no sense at all before ? Is conver- 
sion such a fixed and exclusive experience that chil- 
dren can know nothing of it except in a peculiar sen- 
sation or a definite procedure? Would you dare to 
tell your little boy that, as he is yet " unregenerated," 
his prayers are an abomination to the Lord ? Could 
you consent to debate, as it was debated in a religious 
journal of the nineteenth century, whether it is script- 
ural to teach a child to pray at all before it is old 



I48 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

enough to be scripturally baptized? Would you dare 
to teach your little girl that she must wait until she is 
" converted" before she can do anything pleasing to 
God? Is it only a figure of speech to instruct a 
naughty child, now sorry and tearful, to ask God to 
forgive it, while really there is no actual promise nor 
bestowal of forgiveness on the little lamb, but only a 
dramatic rehearsal and preparation for pardon at some 
future time ? Was it a fact that Jesus was well pleased 
with the hosannas of the children in the Temple, and 
justified the act by a Scripture; but is it now a fact 
that He authorizes no assurance of His pleasure in the 
children's songs of praise in the Sunday-school or the 
family ? Is the attitude of God toward a child veiled 
in impenetrable mystery ? Are we to conclude, ac- 
cording to the old Baptist notion, that a child can 
learn nothing of religion, as religion, for its good ? 
Or, if this is too absurd to believe, are we to judge 
that a child can be taught the facts and morals of the 
Bible, and habituated to pray just for the sake of the 
habit, but that any reality of God's pleasure in the 
child, or any spiritual life and growth of the child 
itself, are, at best, only vague uncertainties, which it 
is unprofitable to consider ? 

I ask the pointed question, that we may be aroused 
to appreciate duly the real teaching of the Bible on 
this subject. What we as Christians must do for our 
children, in hope of God's blessing, is like in spirit to 
what Jewish parents were taught to do for theirs, only 
a greater good, according as we live under a better dis- 
pensation. There is precept of it, and promise of it, 
and living example of it — all in Paul's Epistles. Listen 
to the Christian's duty toward his children, and the 



CONVERSION OF YOUNG PEOPLE. I49 

children's duty toward their Christian parents. ''Nur- 
ture them in the chastening and admonition of the 
Lord," says Paul to the parents. "Obey your parents 
in all things, for this is well-pleasing in the Lord;" 
' ' Honor thy father and mother, that it may be well 
with thee, " says Paul to the children. There are the 
precepts and the promises. And now let us open our 
eyes, and behold the shining example of childhood 
under spiritual culture. The Revised Version is very 
explicit and endlessly suggestive. Paul is exhorting 
Timothy: " But abide thou in the things which thou 
hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom 
thou hast learned them : and that from a babe thou hast 
known the sacred writings which are able to make thee 
wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ 
Jesus." 

The precepts, the promises, the shining example — 
while they are real with daily responsibility, are they 
not also beautiful and hopeful ideals ? They must be 
interpreted together. The three agree in one. They 
show that God meant untold spiritual good to grow in 
and out of the relationships of the family. The natural 
ties of fatherhood, motherhood, childhood, are to be 
channels of His grace. In these sweet human affec- 
tions, illumined, purified, the love of God to us is to be 
all the better realized in fine growths of knowledge, and 
His will concerning us is to be learned more sweetly 
and surely amid mutual studies and prayer. This kin- 
ship of blood is not just an instinct to feed and clothe 
children, and to teach them only decent morals, as any 
good Pagan parent would do ; but it is a bond of God's 
own hand, which He means for all the stronger, nobler 
motive to know and serve Him. The needs of life, the 



15° EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

capacities of life, the duties of life, the aspirations of 
life, as seen budding in the child, as seen fructifying in 
father and mother, themselves children such a little 
while ago — all these are to have in them the lights of 
God, the precepts of God, the promises of God, as sure, 
steadfast influences present forever. 

I certainly do not interpret the Scriptures wrongly 
nor unduly. They seem to me very wide and deep. 
Do they not teach that the life of every child ought to 
be at once moral and religious, with God's Word as the 
light and strength of it from the cradle to the grave ? 
And do they not teach that all these moral and spirit- 
ual influences ought to be brought to bear upon the 
child's life, according to its realization, and ever to- 
wards its realization, of the Gospel in fact, precept, 
promise ? Surely this is what Paul means in his vital, 
vivid words. " Nurture them," he says. It is a sweet, 
delicate, patient process day by day — more than talk, 
more than lecturing, the very life and love of the 
parent's spirit hovering over, brooding over, resting 
upon the spirit of the child. Language can not express 
it. It is deeper than thought. It is the fullness of a 
father's care — it is the divineness of a mother's sacrifice. 
And this nurture has plans and wisdom. It chastens, 
it disciplines, it trains. There is the study of the 
child's temperament, the training of it with reference 
to disposition, taste, talent, the regulation of everything 
— books, companionship, taste, amusements, environ- 
ment — as the totality of these go to make the charac- 
ter of the child. And admonition has its place — dis- 
tinct voices of duty, corrective speeches, inciting tones, 
line upon line, precept upon precept. And the Lord 
is to be in it all ! It is to be of Him, and from Him — 



CONVERSION OF YOUNG PEOPLE. I 5 I 

the Lord's presence, the Lord's providence, the Lord's 
fullness of blessing. There He is for father and mother, 
and there He is for the child. The parent's teaching 
and training are to have their secret source in Him. 
The children's obedience is to be really in fellowship 
with Him — " well-pleasing in the Lord." 

The precepts and promises shine illustriously in the 
example. There was the family, named by Paul ; and 
a time came when mother and grandmother smiled up- 
on a new-born babe. The parents were pious. They 
believed in God. They waited for the hope of Israel. 
We may be sure that they taught the growing boy 
good morals — not to swear, not to lie, not to steal, to 
be industrious, to obey their word. But with them 
morals were religion. They never taught morals ex- 
cept along with religion. When the boy heard what 
was right, he heard it in the name of God. He learned 
his duty to fear God as he learned his duty to obey his 
parents. When he was taught to love his fellow-man, 
he had also been taught first to love God. At his 
mother's knee, with the Book of their religion unrolled 
before their eager eyes, he had learned its law, its 
songs, its prophecies ; and now still a child, believing 
in God, he had learned also to hope for a Messiah yet 
to come with light and blessing. And now when at 
last the glad tidings went forth, from Jerusalem to 
Antioch, from Antioch to Cyprus, on, on, until they 
were preached in the streets and homes of Lystra, and 
the grandmother and mother hastened to hear, and 
readily believed, it came to pass that the child also be- 
lieved. Of course. It was the fruit of family piety. 
It was the sure outcome of nurture in the chasten- 
ing and admonition of the Lord, and of obedience to 



152 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

one's parents in the Lord. The Scripture touch 
is exquisite — ' ' the unfeigned faith that is in thee ; which 
dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother 
Eunice; and, I am persuaded, in thee also." It was 
truly a hereditary faith, an inheritance in the child not 
by miracle nor magic, not a mere infection of blood, 
but read in the light of a mother's eye, seen in the 
beauty of a mother's example, felt in the brooding of a 
mother's spirit, understood in the lessons of a mother's 
love, heard in the faith of a mother's prayer. It had 
in it evermore the sweetness and strength of human 
memory, how it had come — "But abide thou in the 
things which thou hast learned and hast been assured 
of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them." But 
it was a faith that would grow forever in the light of a 
divine reason, whence it had come — " and that from a 
babe thou hast known the sacred writings which are 
able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith 
which is in Christ Jesus." 

This is the ideal of the Gospel of childhood. 
Rather, it was the reality of Christ's religion as seen 
both in parenthood and childhood. It is the example 
of religion in the family. It is the life of father, mother, 
child, one life of spirit, thought, service, hid with 
Christ in God. See father and mother, on their part — 
yes, verily, first on their part — loving one another in 
the light of what they may become as children of God ; 
loving the child as a gift of God, a heritage of the Lord ; 
sanctifying themselves in heart and example for the 
child's sake ; training themselves all the more sedu- 
lously in righteousness as they mark the ideal toward 
which the child ought to be trained; practicing pa- 
tience and self-control for the child's sake : this is the 



CONVERSION OF YOUNG PEOPLE. 1 53 

kind of parents from whom the child is to learn the 
lessons of religion. And lessons of religion it is chiefly 
to learn in its moral training — the truth of the religion 
of Jesus Christ. The child of the Christian is to begin 
to learn the Gospel story as soon as it begins to learn 
anything of moral truth and duty. It may be taught 
faith in God, as it is taught to obey its parents. It 
may be trained to love Christ, as it is trained to be 
good. The redemption of the Gospel has sweet, simple 
influences on a child's heart, as the child sees right 
and wrong, and feels the responsibility of doing right 
and not doing wrong, and feels the need of forgiveness 
when it has done wrong — this, even while the responsi- 
bility of the child has not yet distinctly developed in a 
conscious individuality, and its will is so deeply depen- 
dent on the authority and bent of the parent's will. 
Have we not seen it verified in the lives of children, so 
that we must say unhesitatingly, Yes, Christ's religion 
has stages of light and faith for a child ? 

A father meets with a terrible accident that threat- 
ens the loss of both eyes. In the excitement of an 
evening, no one notices the absence of the youngest 
child, a daughter six years old. When relief has been 
given, there are wondering inquiry and search for the 
pet of the household. The little one is found in a 
dark, isolated room of the mansion, on her knees, 
weeping, praying God to "please cure poor papa, and 
not let him go blind." Do you have any doubt of that 
faith ? Do you not think that God was real to that child ? 
Do you not believe that her prayer went up for a 
memorial before Him ? 

A boy ten years of age lies upon his sick-bed, con- 
valescing, after the long battle with fever, weak, pale, 



154 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

thoughtful. One day he called his devoted mother to 
his side, and asked her to bend down ; he had some- 
thing to tell her. And with his thin arms around her 
neck, he spoke from the heart — "Mamma, lam so 
glad that I am going to get well ; I was n't always a 
good boy when I was well ; I used to say naughty 
words when I played with the other boys ; but I have 
asked God to forgive me, and I am going to be a bet- 
ter boy when I get up again." Who questions there 
was joy in Heaven over that child's repentance, as he 
found his way back to duty, believing in the goodness 
and grace of God ? 

A little girl barely four years old, tired, sleepy, 
falls asleep, sitting in the big-armed chair, and the lov- 
ing mother deftly undresses her, and tucks her in bed, 
without disturbing the golden dreams. Far into the 
night, when all is still, and the light burns low, a stir 
is heard in the crib, and a sweet voice breaks plaint- 
ively on the air — " Now I lay me down to sleep" — the 
little lamb remembered that she had forgotten to pray ; 
she had been taught to ask that God would take care 
of her while she slept ; she finished her prayer, and 
turned upon her pillow, and in a moment was roaming 
again in fairy -land. Does it not remind us of Christ's 
word — "I say unto you, that in heaven their angels 
do always behold the face of my Father which is in 
heaven''? Is there not such a thing as a child's faith, 
as pure and real as the faith of Abraham or of Paul ? 

These are the stages of the development of a child's 
nature, religiously. They are to have their place in 
the child's life slowly, surely, hopefully, until — until — 
listen, and mark it well — until that hour of wonderful, 
conscious individuality comes, comes as the child never 



CONVERSION OF YOUNG PEOPLE. 1 55 

knew it before — comes gently, as it ought to come, 
if it has its scriptural way, yet comes distinctly and 
critically, when the child, nurtured in the chastening 
and admonition of the Lord, the heart already long 
turned, the mind fully enlightened on the facts, pre- 
cepts, promises of the Gospel, deliberately and re- 
sponsibly for itself, in that dawn of moral individuality, 
confesses Christ and is baptized. And the child's bap- 
tism then will have the seasonableness and beautiful 
meaning of the ordinance in Apostolic doctrine. Not 
that there has been no salvation of the child all along. 
Nay, the child has been included in the redemption in 
Christ all along. Every lesson of morals, every note 
of the Bible, every truth of God and duty and immor- 
tality, has been taught the child in the light of the re- 
demption in Christ in which the child is included. ' ' One 
died for all, therefore all died," teaches Paul; and lit- 
tle children were embraced potentially in the Saviour's 
death ; and the good of that sacrifice is theirs verily, 
which they are to learn and know as they learn and 
know truth and right every day, every hour, in the 
first lessons of obedience to parents, in every lesson of 
conscience and character, with each growing year. 
Their baptism then, in intelligence and faith, early in 
life, will really and beautifully represent their salvation, 
will really and helpfully confirm their salvation, will 
really and blessedly associate their salvation with the 
salvation of others, will really and significantly con- 
summate their salvation, in the knowledge of whose 
reality and blessing the children have been growing all 
along. 

The whole truth of God's Word on the conversion of 
children avoids both extremes — the unscriptural prac- 



I56 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

tice of baptizing them without any intelligence or faith 
on their part, and the unscriptural habit of allowing 
them to grow up without any expectancy of real spir- 
itual influences upon them for good until they encoun- 
ter a horror of conviction and a spasm of conversion. 
It clearly speaks both obligation and encouragement 
to fathers and mothers, leading them to hope that 
as the child, embosomed in the love of the fam- 
ily, living in an atmosphere of prayer, learns all 
moral truths and duties line upon line in the light of 
the redemption in Christ, familiarized with the story of 
the Messiah of prophecy, the Babe of Bethlehem, the 
Boy in the Temple, the Sufferer on the Cross, the 
Risen Lord, it will surely grow to an intelligent, per- 
sonally responsible confession of Christ in the pub- 
licity of the congregation, according to Apostolic prac- 
tice. Is not this the truth, and the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth, of that luminous Scripture of 
childhood — the word of Paul to Timothy? — "But 
abide thou in the things which thou hast learned, and 
hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast 
learned them : and that from a babe thou hast known 
the sacred writings, which are able to make thee wise 
unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." 
How stands the matter with us parents, and with 
the children present, to-night? Have I taught the 
truth ? Does it cheer us, rebuke us, exhort us ? It is 
something for every father and mother to think upon, 
whether the children, as they grow up, are growing in 
the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
Are they gradually, surely, yet critically, coming to 
the sense of individual responsibility under the Gos- 
pel ? It is not a question merely of age. There is a 



CONVERSION OF YOUNG PEOPLE. 1 57 

fascination about the twelfth year in the realization of 
such obligation. We have Bible light for the fact ; 
and it has been true a thousand times over in the lives 
of young people nowadays. But that hour of distinct 
personal conviction, persuasion, the readiness to con- 
fess Christ publicly, as Timothy did, in the sight of 
many witnesses, may dawn earlier. Look for it. 
Pray for it. Encourage it. Guide it. From the pul- 
pit, as you fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, sit to- 
gether, I want to take up the Old Testament note, 
" Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy 
youth ; " and as parents long to see their children make 
the distinct, public avowal of loyalty to Christ, I want 
to exhort the children, out of the faith of their hearts, to 
confess the good confession and to be baptized. There 
be those of you that are more than old enough to take 
this step. You know your duty. You have felt its 
pressure on your conscience more than once. It has 
become a distinctly individual crisis with you. You 
do feel that it is the turning point of your life, 
and that all the light and privileges of your child- 
hood are centering on this hour, as you obey or dis- 
obey Christ in the appointments of His Gospel. I beg 
you, one and all, as you realize your individual duty to 
Christ along with that deep, individual sense of your 
need of Him as Saviour, that you hesitate not one day, 
but courageously arise and confess Him with the 
mouth. Tell me, have you not learned of Him ? 
Have you not been taught His truth from babyhood ? 
Does not His Word dwell in you, many a sweet Script- 
ure that you memorized at your mother's knee, or 
heard from the lips of your faithful teacher in the Sun- 
day-school ? He is no stranger to you, is He? Have 



I58 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

you not prayed always in His name ? Have you not 
always loved Him, and does not your heart burn with 
this love now as you behold how much He is to you, 
how much He has done for you, and what confession 
and obedience He now calls for on your part ? Is not 
this the glad moment of your life when, in the crisis of 
individual conviction, feeling your own need and feel- 
ing your own responsibility, in the light of the Gospel, 
you become wise unto salvation through faith which is 
in Christ Jesus? 



SERMON VIII. 
The Penitent robber. 












VIII. 

THE PENITENT ROBBER. 

"And he said, Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy king- 
dom. And he said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou 
be with me in Paradise." — Luke xxiii. 42, 43. 

The story of the salvation of "the thief on the 
cross " will always excite in us a deep, deep interest. 
It is a reasonable interest. It is a healthy interest. Why 
should it not be? We see unmistakably an instance 
of death-bed repentance. A man guilty of crime, con- 
demned, crucified, turns to God in the hour and article 
of death, and begs for mercy. Let us receive the 
story, and read it, in the spirit and purpose of its place 
in the Gospel narrative. We ought not straightway to 
pervert it into a battle-ground of theological debate, 
and lose sight of its soft light amid the smoke of con- 
troversy. It is a Scripture that may be wrested dam- 
agingly to sinners. Sure enough. But it was certainly 
written for the comfort and hope of humanity. Can 
ycu think of a different reason why it should be re- 
corded ? Is it not meant to magnify the mercy of 
God ? Does it not exhibit His exceeding grace toward 
men in the Son of His love ? Do we not see the heart 
of Christ opened from its deepest depths, to shelter 
guilty sinners from the wrath to come ? 

Consider the very fact that this story of death-bed 

conversion is found only in the narrative of Luke — in 

(161) 



1 62 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

Luke's Gospel, so felicitously called "the Gospel of 
humanity." It is very like Luke's style of gathering 
and reporting the incidents of the Saviour's life. He 
gives much not found in Matthew, or Mark, or John ; 
and his characteristic narratives are soft and sweet with 
the pathos of humanity and the tender mercies of the 
Son of Man. It is Luke alone who tells of the lowly 
birth of Jesus, and of the bright scene of the boy Jesus 
in the temple ; who records the tears and kisses of the 
outcast woman, as she knelt at the feet of Jesus in the 
Pharisee's house ; who gives the story of the lost sheep, 
and the lost piece of money, and the prodigal son; 
who sets forth the parable of the good Samaritan, and 
narrates the radical repentance of the publican Zaccheus. 
And in Luke's Gospel, the Gospel of humanity, in 
Luke's Gospel only, we have the precious fact of a sin- 
ner's conversion, as he died in the agonies of cruci- 
fixion. Let us hold to the heart of the story — without 
controversy, and without perversion. The spirit and 
power of such a Gospel — that is what we want; so 
gracious, so pitiful, so saving. We desire to under- 
stand it in its positive lights, every line of it, every 
word of it, every throb of it ; and surely if we drink in 
the full measure of hope there revealed, we shall be 
none the less prepared for lessons of warning. If, in 
this salvation of a criminal at the dying hour, in the 
very presence of Christ, who suffers with him, we feel 
the warm heart of God in His love for the world, per- 
haps if the fact strikes us and thrills us through and 
through with all its truth and power, it may solemnize 
us, and cause us to see, with mingled gratitude and 
awe, that, before such a scene, crime — the pains of 
death — an outcry for mercy — from a prison to Paradise 



THE PENITENT ROBBER. 1 63 

— the guilt and tears of a poor, undone sinner, and the 
love and promise of a Saviour, no one, indeed, need 
to despair, but — no one shall dare to presume. 

Who is this criminal ? What is his crime ? What 
has brought him to this ignominious and painful death? 
According to the old version, he was a thief ; and so 
the old hymn runs, " The dying thief." But the Re- 
vised Version is more 'accurate. Not a thief, but a 
robber. Henceforth, if we would read the Scriptures 
aright, we must say, "and with him they crucify two 
robbers ; one on his right hand, and one on his 
left." There is no hair-splitting of words in the 
change. A thief is a coward, who does his naughty 
work by stealth, and by petty practices, and tries 
meanwhile to evade the law. A robber is bold, ex- 
hibits a certain open-handed courage, the courage of 
desperate wickedness though it be, as he defiantly 
breaks the law. 

It was two robbers between whom the Saviour was 
crucified. They were Jews ; and it was their nation- 
ality that had been the occasion of their crime. They 
had become a class in that day, becoming so as they 
chafed under the bondage of the Roman yoke, heated 
by patriotic fire, burning to deliver Israel from oppres- 
sion, and at last driven to some insurrection that made 
them henceforth outlaws, when they would flee to 
mountain fastnesses, and live by murder and robbery. 
Sometimes the robber was "a notable prisoner," as 
Barabbas ; and the Jews deemed it a favor, if some Pi- 
late or Felix, at the Passover feast, would release one 
of these patriotic ringleaders. Two of these brigands 
there were, who, no doubt, like Barabbas, "for insur- 
rection and murder had been cast into prison." Barab- 



164 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

bas went forth free ; but Jesus was led out, to be cru- 
cified — the Son of God on his way to death, heading a 
strange procession, Simon of Cyrene bearing the cross 
after the weary Saviour, followed by a great multitude 
of the people, and of women in tears and lamentations, 
while close to Him, bearing their own crosses, were 
"two others, malefactors, led with him to be put to 
death. " 

The Saviour of the world, obedient unto death, yea, 
the death of the cross, and two robbers dying with 
Him, one on the right hand, the other on the left, 
one of these repenting at the door of death — this is 
the scene and the study before us. There are heights 
and depths about it that we might not suspect, if we did 
not look it carefully over. The time was short, only a 
few hours ; but time may bring its crisis, in which a 
man's life may be filled with the significance of eternity. 
That one hour is as threescore and ten years, and 
threescore and ten years as one hour. What a man 
then sees, hears, knows and feels, crowds his whole 
life together, and shows him, in the electric light of 
truth, what he is, and what he ought to be. All the 
past stands out uncovered in the glare of conscience, 
and what the man has been doing, and what he has 
made of himself by his deeds, the totality of his habits 
and character, will now decidedly and decisively affect 
his destiny. It will make all the difference imaginable 
whether he is hardened in heart or not. The day will 
declare what he is in feeling, and to no person more un- 
mistakably than to himself. He is bound to act him- 
self out completely in this last scene of the drama of 
life. It is not a whim whether or not a wicked man 
will repent on his death-bed. It is not accidental one 



THE PENITENT ROBBER. 1 65 

way or the other. It is something more than a slavish 
dread of Hell. It is something more than a selfish 
desire of Heaven. The reality of life, the realness of 
that man's life, its inmost heart, all that makes him 
responsible before the judgment of God, will be revealed 
in a noontide light without a cloud. 

It was such a crisis for those two robbers on the 
cross. Let us remember there were two of them — one 
of them penitent, the other impenitent. For we must 
properly follow Luke's record as both full and exact. 
The statement of Matthew and of Mark, that both of 
the robbers reproached Jesus, we must receive in the 
light of a free literary classification, where neither of 
the writers, as Luke, had any purpose of discrimination 
in narrating the repentance of one of the malefactors. 
In Luke's narrative, alone giving the repentance of one 
of them, giving it fully and minutely, we see revealed 
the inmost heart of the poor robber ; we see a re- 
pentance not whimsical, not accidental, not sentimen- 
tal, but thoughtful and strong and humble and prayer- 
ful beyond a doubt. All this we want to get before 
us, that we may magnify the mercy of God, while we 
verily show how dangerous is any presumption on the 
sinner's part. 

Five significant facts shine out in the penitent rob- 
ber's speech. They show how intelligent and whole- 
hearted his repentance was. 

1. He had a wholesome fear of God. " And one 
of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, 
saying, Art thou the Christ ? save thyself and us. 
But the other answered, and rebuking him said, Dost 
thou not even fear God, seeing thou art in the same 
condemnation ? " Mark the railing words, as they broke 



1 66 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

forth out of a railing heart. It is a thoroughly selfish 
speech of an immoral man, afraid to die. All the use 
he has for a Christ is to help himself to get down from 
that torturous cross, and go free. But mark the answer 
of the comrade — a rebuke, indeed, not a wild and 
fierce rebuke, but a rebuke from a dying man, who is 
thinking about his condition, and whose heart is astir 
with soft wonderings as he looked upon the face of the 
Sufferer next to him. ' ' Dost thou not even fear God ? ' ' 
Here is faith in God. Of course. The robber was a 
Jew. That faith had not been born in a day. The 
cross had not made him a believer since he had been 
nailed to it. He had not been driven to acknowledge 
Deity under the shadow of death. That faith was a 
life-long faith. It was one of the sweet flowers that 
grew in the heart of every Jewish boy. The robber 
could look back and remember when he went to the 
synagogue in his native town, and came up to the 
temple for worship, or stood at some mother's or grand- 
mother's knee, and heard the law, the psalms, and the 
prophets. Criminal that he had become in manhood's 
prime, an outlaw now condemned and dying, he was 
no atheist, no infidel ; he said neither in his head nor 
in his heart, There is no God ; he believed that God is ; 
and he feared God. '* Dost thou not even fear God ? " 
That little word, even. It was time for one that be- 
lieved there is a God, to fear Him. Death was at 
hand; judgment was near; ought not all this to solem- 
nize one, and cause one humbly and wisely to fear? 
The dying malefactor had a living faith, with its health- 
ful fear, as he acknowledged God, the God of Abra- 
ham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of the proph- 



THE PENITENT ROBBER. 1 67 

ets, the God of his fathers, his own God, the right- 
eous Judge of all the earth. 

2. He had a true sympathy with a fellow-man. 
There it was, wrapped up warmly in the same heart 
that feared God. ' ' Dost thou not even fear God, see- 
ing thou art in the same condemnation?" God — him- 
self — a fellow-man, and both in a like condition — " the 
same condemnation " — all this rolled in upon the dying 
robber, and while his faith looked toward God, his 
heart beat in sympathy with those that suffered by 
him. There could not have been in a man a surer fact 
of a broken and a contrite heart. We judge a 
man human, as long as his feeling can be touched 
and softened by the sight of the woes and pains of 
mortals. We say he is not all wicked when he can 
weep with those that weep, and speak out quickly his 
sympathy with suffering fellow-men, and sometimes 
even strangely dare a noble self-sacrifice that another 
may be spared. Those tender sentiments in human 
nature are of God. They have survived the inroads of 
sin, nestling deep down in divine depths of the heart; 
and it is a wonder and a glory how now and then they 
spring up in power, and rise in winged words of poetry 
or in the sublimer poetry of deeds, and help to keep 
humanity from devilish despair. "lama man, and I 
count nothing human to be alien from me," sang one 
of the Roman bards. And sang another, speaking 
the heart of a heathen queen to shipwrecked pilgrims : 
"Not unacquainted with grief, I learn to succor those 
that suffer." Thank God for any tenderness of heart 
that you have. Rejoice if the tear of sympathy easily 
starts in view of a fellow's sorrow. The beginnings of 
conversion may be right there in healthy, humane sen- 



1 68 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

timents. It may be the sign that the heart is not hard- 
ened — "past feeling," as Paul once terribly describes 
it. One of the malefactors was hardened. He did 
nothing but taunt and rail. He had no fear of God 
before his eyes. He had no tears to shed for a fellow- 
sufferer. The other malefactor — do we not now begin 
to see aright the real condition of his soul ? Under 
the torture of nails, amid quivering agonies of body, 
thirsting and dying, the soul is alive — alive in faith and 
in love. He looks up to God. He looks upon a fel- 
low-man. He fears the Judge of all the earth. He 
feels sincerely with the silent Sufferer by his side. Re- 
ligion is burning within him — humility before God, love 
toward a fellow-man. 

3. He made an honest, explicit, unqualified confes- 
sion of his guilt. Men plainly judge themselves 
by the manner in which they acknowledge their 
sins and transgressions. They are often self- 

deceived in it. They acknowledge their general 
sinfulness, but they do not admit their specific faults. 
Or if they are convinced that this or that wrong deed 
can not be denied, they try to excuse it or to palliate 
it. And the severest judgment of our shallow confes- 
sions of our sins, is that just not denying them seems 
to sum up our whole duty, and that is the end of the 
matter. We forget the consequences of sin. These 
are to be heard from, and not to be silenced. Our 
whole duty is not only to confess our sins, but to be 
prepared for whatever penalties or chastisements in- 
evitably follow. The sin of drunkenness, long in- 
dulged, even while you repent of it, and are forgiven 
of God, you may expect to be humbled very greatly 
as often, in the flame of your appetite and the dread- 



THE PENITENT ROBBER. 



I69 



ful weakness of your nerves, you have to watch and 
pray against another fall. Your break -down in integ- 
rity of character, exposed, confessed, even forgiven, 
will impose on you years of distrust by many of your 
business associates, as penitently and honestly you en- 
deavor to establish a good name once more. And the 
secret sins, which the world never heard of, which you 
have confessed to God and which you bravely strive 
against now, the poison of them is still in your blood, 
and the shame of them haunts your memory, and 
keeps you strangely humble in your present life of 
purity and love. 

Now look at this confession of the penitent robber. 
Is it not plain, sincere, straightforward, unqualified, 
downright and unreservedly humble ? He was a crim- 
inal before God and man. He had been an outlaw. 
He had robbed, and probably murdered, his fellow- 
men. But he is arrested, tried, convicted, crucified ; 
and, so far from denying his crime, he not only admits 
that, but acknowledges the righteousness of his con- 
demnation. "And we indeed justly; for we receive 
the due reward of our deeds." What a difference be- 
tween the two malefactors ! One of them hardened, 
past feeling, chafing under punishment, a railing 
wretch ; the other, bowing to the penalty of the law, 
confessing his guilt in the justice of the punishment, 
touched in heart by the agony of another, humbly 
fearing God ! It was a wonderful depth in the peni- 
tence of the robber that, feeling his guilt, and an awful 
spectacle for men in his condemnation, he could speak 
aloud : "I receive the due reward of my deeds." 

4. He appreciated and confessed the innocence of 
Jesus. It was no surmise on his part, we may be sure. 



I70 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

It was not a successful guess on general principles, 
hastily conceived as he looked at the Sufferer, and 
marked the air of beautiful meekness and resignation. 
The confession must have arisen from what he knew 
before of Jesus, as well as what he saw there of the 
faultless spirit and perfect character. He must have 
heard of the great Teacher, the Wonder-worker, who 
went about doing good, and preaching the kingdom of 
God. It is no strain of the imagination to think that 
the poor malefactor may have seen the Son of Man, 
and have been astonished at the authoritative teaching 
and the lovable life. There is already in the robber's 
heart something other than just an indifferent admis- 
sion that the prisoner between himself and the fellow- 
malefactor did not deserve such a fate. It was because 
his own guilt was piercing his conscience that he saw 
all the more plainly how innocent Jesus was ; and it 
was because, hearing or knowing of Jesus before, and 
also now seeing the marvelous patience and catching 
the wonderful words of forgiving love and unselfish 
thoughtfulness, his heart was melting in penitence and 
tears, that he could speak in a positive and sympathetic 
voice, " This man hath done nothing amiss. " For, 

5. His penitence, genuine, intelligent, growing 
deeper and fuller in those hours of agony, in the sight 
and hearing of the Lamb of God, now became a direct, 
truth-lit prayer. "And he said, Jesus, remember me 
when thou comest in thy kingdom." Let us appreci- 
ate the spirit of this prayer, and do it justice. A dying 
man is praying. He has been a wicked man — an out- 
law, a robber, probably a murderer. He is dying in 
the shame and torture of crucifixion. The time is 
short. Eternity is near. There is a death-bed cry for 



THE PENITENT ROBBER. I7I 

mercy. It breaks from lips unused to prayer. But, 
mark ! it is not a dark, ignorant, selfish prayer — the 
prayer of a self-deceived man who imagines that he is 
repenting of his life-long sins. A robber, a condemned 
criminal, in the hour and article of death, prays for 
mercy. It was a quivering prayer, bursting forth from 
a trembling heart and parched lips. But in it there was 
the fear of God, the faith of childhood alive once more. 
In it there was humane feeling toward a fellow-man. 
In it there was the sincere conviction of a guilty career, 
an honest, frank confession of crime, an humble ac- 
knowledgement of the justice of condemnation and 
crucifixion. In it there was the tender eye that saw 
the innocence of one of his companions in judgment — 
saw it, too, in the wide light of loveliness in death, 
and of doctrine and deed in life ; and of a revelation of 
the God of Israel amid it all. That prayer, so peni- 
tent, so pathetic, the helpless cry of a dying criminal, 
is more intelligent than perhaps we have been in the 
habit of thinking. He prays: "Jesus, remember me 
when thou comest in thy kingdom." Not "comest 
into thy kingdom," as we read in the old version, but 
as in the Revised Version, ' ' when thou comest in thy 
kingdom." The robber was a Jew, and he knew the 
Scriptures. He had been taught of the Messiah to 
come, and, like every Jew, he looked for the kingdom 
of God : he looked for the appearance of the Messiah 
in His kingdom. It was not a perfect faith — perfect in 
knowledge ; it needed to be corrected, purified, en- 
larged, freed from certain sensuous elements, made 
more spiritual. But it was a faith perfect in trust, as 
it laid hold of the person of Jesus, and saw in Him the 
Messiah of God. The robber knew not the times and 



172 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

seasons. He could not, except in a far-off way, appre- 
ciate the character of the coming kingdom. But there 
was the Messiah, he was sure, the Christ of God ; and 
only the blessed Lord Himself could measure the pen- 
itence, the hunger, the outstretched faith, the tearful, 
heart-breaking cry of that prayer: " Jesus, remember 
me when thou comest in thy kingdom." 

The prayer was heard. A man repenting in the 
agony of death was saved. The mercy of God was 
again illustriously magnified, according to this Gospel 
of humanity. The redemption that could find the 
praying publican, and the woman that was a sinner, 
and the prodigal son, and the lost sheep, finds another 
poor, undone sinner repenting while he was dying ; and 
the lips of mercy spoke the exquisite promise, " Ver- 
ily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in 
Paradise." The heart of the dying Jew knew enough 
what it meant. There was forgiveness for him. The 
balm of peace began to descend on his soul. He was 
no longer a guilty sinner, but a child of God. He was 
dying with the very Messiah, and that day, when it was 
all over, they should meet one another again in Para- 
dise. It should be life again, free from sin, without 
pains or fears, a sweet and perfect rest, in company 
with Jesus, in the Garden of God. 

Let me ask with you eagerly, was not the lesson 
written also for us ? Indeed it was. And I want to 
ask searchingly, have we ever opened our hearts fully 
to the shining Heaven of mercy in the story ? We do 
despite to the spirit of this Scripture when we lose 
sight of the heart of love so radiant and warm in it, 
and concern ourselves just with some exegetical ques- 
tions or some theological puzzles suggested by the 



THE PENITENT ROBBER. 1 73 

text, or perhaps prompted by our own cold specula- 
tions and still colder natures. I know of no soft, ten- 
der, pathetic Scripture, in which the philanthropy of 
God so luminously appears, that has been so clouded 
and blackened in distrustful expositions and stormy 
debates. One pulpiteer will rule it out for all lessons 
of light and mercy to-day because the event occurred 
before the Day of Pentecost of Acts ii. Another will 
argue that the robber's going to Paradise does not 
necessarily prove that he was saved, after all. A third 
will hold up the story to settle that a sinner has noth- 
ing to do, must be helplessly passive, as God saves 
him. " I 'd like to know what a thief could do, nailed 
to a cross, but just believe?" so the foolish question 
is ignorantly asked by a popular evangelist, who needs to 
understand the first principles of the Gospel of Christ. 
It is all wrong, this way of reading and using the 
wonderful narrative. We are not to start with cold 
cautions about perverting it, and surely not with 
clumsy efforts of explaining it away, nor mechanical 
twists of incidental logic concerning it, until with hard 
intellects and still harder hearts we are deaf to the sad 
cry of the poor robber, and hear not the music of a 
Redeemer's voice of mercy and love. Those two facts 
— that an undone sinner, dying in agony, like a bruised 
reed, like smoking flax, piteously cried for help, and 
that the strong Saviour of the world, suffering with 
him, yet able to save, went before him into Paradise, 
and opened the way for him to come, too — we want to 
read this sweet story of old, and read it, and read it, 
until we feel like saying, in gratitude and tears, " Do 
not our hearts burn within us, as He speaks to us in 
His Word?" 



174 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

Yes; tears and gratitude first, as we magnify the 
exceeding mercy of God. And then I am sure, if the 
story rightly affects us in this way, we can but nobly 
feel that it is also a Scripture for this day, and that we 
shall be overjoyed, and more and more filled with 
praise, if we see it proving itself a Gospel for some 
sinner again lying at death's door. Why should we 
not believe in such a Gospel of mercy following a 
guilty man down to the low dark verge of life ? It is 
human. It is scriptural. It is divine. Let sinners have 
every opportunity of salvation. Do not limit the 
mercy of God ; do not forestall His judgment. Were 
you ever called, rather first of your own accord did 
you ever go to the bedside of a dying fellow-man, or 
to the prison-cell of some man doomed to die ? And 
then and there did you see the soul awaking in its 
guilt, and in its hunger ? Did you mark the wondering, 
the piteous, look of the eye ? Was your humanity 
touched through and through by the forlornness of the 
poor sufferer ? And while you both felt the over- 
shadowing, dread reality of another world, was your 
own heart completely melted within you, as a voice 
spoke sadly and brokenly, " Pray for me"? Tell me 
— tell me, did you feel bound then by a mechanical 
system of theology ? Did you stop to debate with an 
imaginary opponent over the grace of God? Did 
not the Gospel of humanity rise upon you in a 
larger light and a clearer, more beautiful meaning ? 
Oh ! how sweet and how reasonable it was then to think 
of the lost sheep, and the shepherd searching for it ; 
and of the prodigal son, and the Father waiting 
for the poor child to come to himself and to come 
back home ; and of the penitent robber, and the 



THE PENITENT ROBBER. 1 75 

merciful Saviour breathing the words of peace and hope ! 
By all this Gospel of humanity, the Gospel of divine 
long-suffering and mercy, the Gospel of God, who does 
not wish that any should perish, but that all should 
come to repentance, by the Gospel of a dying and a 
rising and ever-living Saviour, by the Gospel of Apos- 
tolic preaching, the Gospel of easy precept and lumin- 
ous promise — let us be assured that it is possible for a 
sinner to turn at death's door, then and there to be- 
lieve on Christ, to repent of his sins, to confess the 
Saviour, to be baptized, and to receive the salvation of 
his soul. 

I will not stop for any debate whether such a peni- 
tent man, repenting under the shadow of death, dying 
possibly without baptism, will be saved or not. This 
I know, and this you know, that the Word of God 
teaches, as the old creed confesses, "one baptism for 
the remission of sins." The Gospel commands peni- 
tent believers to be baptized unto the remission of sins. 
The ordinance of baptism is taught thus unmistakably 
in the Apostolic ministry, the ministry of the Holy 
Spirit, on and after that grand inaugural Day of Pen- 
tecost that ushered in the full and authoritative Gospel 
of Christ's death and resurrection. But such a baptism 
was taught before that central day. Such were the 
precept and purpose of John's baptism, "the baptism 
of repentance unto the remission of sins," the counsel 
of God that came to every Jew, whether publican or 
Pharisee, whether robber or Sadducee. Nay, Jesus 
made and baptized disciples (although Jesus Himself 
baptized not, but His disciples). The duty of baptism, 
involving repentance and remission of sins, had been 
not a whit less obligatory upon the wicked robber than 



1^6 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

it is upon the sinner or criminal of to-day. And thank 
God, when we concern ourselves about it in the right 
way, when we feel fully this Gospel of humanity, and 
carry it to the patient on the sick bed, or to the doomed 
prisoner in his cell, and trust in its power to convict 
and convert, we somehow find it wonderfully easy, no 
distraction at all, no trouble, when we exercise sancti- 
fied common sense, to bring the decent and convenient 
portable baptistery, and to baptize the penitent believer 
' ' into the name of the Father and of the Son and of 
the Holy Spirit." 

This is the v/hole, reasonable truth upon the matter. 
Christian baptism, a part of the Gospel of the grace of 
God, is not a superstitious rite. It is not a fetich, 
to be appeased by the devotion of the worshiper. It 
is not a gauntlet to be run amid threats and dangers. 
It is an appointment of God's mercy and grace ; and 
there the salvation of the penitent believer is really and 
beautifully represented, there really and helpfully con- 
firmed, there really and blessedly associated with the 
salvation of others, there really and significantly con- 
summated in the obedience of faith whose principle and 
whose process is eternal life. This is why the obedi- 
ence of faith in the ordinance has brought its days or 
hours of peace to the sick bed, when the poor sufferer 
has become very weak in body, scarcely able to arise, 
nay, requiring to be tenderly lifted, and gently buried 
with Christ in baptism. Not because of any infection of 
magic nor charm of mechanics in the institution — one 
extreme ; nor surely because it is a mere rite of bald 
rationalism, without any blessing of redemption in it — 
the other extreme — have sick, dying men been bap- 
tized, and should be baptized. Where it is not prac- 



THE PENITENT ROBBER. I 77 

ticable, a criminal nailed to the cross, an invalid too far 
gone to survive the act (how seldom that will be !), a 
prodigal son suddenly turning in some fatal casualty 
where is no opportunity for such obedience, then as- 
suredly, if there be tears, penitence, the strong cry for 
deliverance, the humility of faith, we trust the Word of 
truth — ''If the readiness is there, it is acceptable ac- 
cording as a man hath, not according as he hath not ; " 
and in that penitent heart of living faith assuredly is 
present the salvation of God. I exhort, let us not read 
the story of the penitent robber, straightway to frame 
a theological dictum that baptism has no place nor 
reason in the Gospel of salvation. I do not see how any 
one can say that, with the plain teaching of the Script- 
ures concerning "the obedience of faith," in which is 
the process of salvation, where baptism, in Apostolic 
doctrine, speaks its seasonable commandment, and 
promises a spiritual blessing. But let us not make bap- 
tism a necessity that God's Word does not. I do not 
see how any one can think and teach in that way, if he 
feels the throb of that scene at Calvary, and believes 
that it is a Gospel of humanity for all ages. 

Always, always, we are to feel thus in reading or 
preaching the story of the penitent robber. We want 
to know the heart of it first. We want to appreciate, 
fully and gratefully, the reason why Luke narrated 
this touching fact. The good of it, the positive good 
for us, for sinners to-day, what lesson of God's love 
and mercy — let us see all this, in its own warm, sweet 
light ; and surely in such a way we shall be all the 
better prepared to hear the undertones of warning 
that the Gospel may also necessarily sound. It is the 
very way to make you see, O sinner ! that you dare 



I78 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

not idly presume on your salvation while putting it off 
till death approaches. 

Are you really, secretly in your heart, presuming 
on God's mercy as a last resort ? Do you think it a 
certain fact whose blessing you will grasp as you hurry 
to the grave ? Are you sure of that ? Are you so 
sure of yourself? Suppose that death comes suddenly, 
unexpectedly, terribly — what then ? It is very pos- 
sible. You may drop dead on the street some day, 
without a moment's warning — no time for prayer, no 
time for repentance. You may be hurled headlong to 
destruction in some railroad wreck. You may die 
somewhere, somehow, without a moment's warning, 
and open your eyes in Hades, with the torment of your 
sins on your soul. Do you want to run that risk ? 
Do you think it safe to dare death in that way, and to 
conclude that it will all be right beyond the grave any- 
how ? Be careful. The story of the penitent robber 
does not justify that. 

Do you take it for granted that you will be sick 
long enough to make your peace with God before you 
die ? What right have you to suppose that ? May be 
your sickness will be very short — three days, one day, 
between the rising and the setting sun, between night- 
fall and morning, It may be so deceptive that you 
think that you will surely get well ; you are disturbed 
with no fears of dying ; it does not occur to you to re- 
pent and pray for mercy. Men, a thousand times, have 
been ill this way ; and in twenty-four hours, to the 
astonishment of everybody, there is a funeral march to 
the city of the dead. Even if you linger on the sick- 
bed, are you sure of repentance ? What about opiates, 
which benumb the senses or cloud the brain ? Will 



THE PENITENT ROBBER. 1 79 

you hear the Gospel then, and intelligently repent and 
believe ? 

Nay, nay ; there is a greater danger still. There is 
still a more fearful risk. In mortal illness, as you 
think, the dews of death on your forehead, with a 
sound mind, and tears in your eyes, and prayer after 
prayer on your lips, you may feel that you are a peni- 
tent man, and that you accept the salvation of God — 
and then what? Listen! Perhaps I am describing 
the experience of some sinner here to-night. Why, 
you did not die — to your own surprise you did not die ! 
You arose from that sick-bed, which even the wise 
physician thought would be your death-bed ; and, alas ! 
you saw for yourself that your repentance was not 
genuine, and you did not care. You did not die : you 
lived on ; but you did not repent, nor change your 
life for the better. You went on in disobedience, and 
you have not repented yet. Your sick-bed repentance 
was not real. You were self-deceived. You were 
selfishly dreading death and Hell. You were not 
humbly fearing God, and hating your own sins, hungry 
for pardon and peace. If you had died, and gone on 
into the other world, the lightning flash of God's judg- 
ment would have showed you to yourself, how blind 
and mistaken you were. You would have gone on, and 
entered there just what you continued to be here after 
you got on your feet again. 

And still there is another danger, the most terrible 
of all. You may at last lie dying, in full possession of 
your senses, with mind clear and unclouded, and die in 
perfect indifference to death and God and judgment. 
Men sometimes go in that way. They have no concern 
in their unbelief. They simply do not care for what is 



180 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

beyond the grave. They are hardened — hardened ! 
The hardness not of blasphemy, but the hardness of 
indifference ! No sign of death-bed repentance, but 
the awful reality of death-bed impenitence ! 

Oh ! it was a vision of mercy over that torturous 
death-bed of the robber. It promises not to break the 
bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. It opens 
the gates of glory to every poor, storm-beaten sinner, 
who comes empty-handed, hungry-hearted, bringing 
nothing but his penitence and his tears, and crying out 
for salvation. There can be no trifling with such love. 
It makes your responsibility all the surer, all the 
heavier, as you hear this Gospel of humanity in health 
of body and mind, in the golden privilege of the pres- 
ent hour. Do not presume. Do not delay. Do not 
assure yourself of time to repent. Do not assure your- 
self of disposition to repent. Be not self-deceived. 
Harden not your heart. Behold, now is the acceptable 
time ! now is the day of salvation ! 



SERMON IX. 

Glorifying God in the 
Namk Christian. 



IX. 

GLORIFYING GOD IN THE NAME 
CHRISTIAN. 

" But if a man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed ; but 
let him glorify God in this name." — /. Pet. iv. 16. 

The Revised Version makes more explicit and more 
vivid this heartfelt note of the Apostle. "Let him 
glorify God in this behalf" was the old reading. But 
the new text is better — " Let him glorify God in this 
name" It is not only the fact of the Christian's suf- 
fering that may make for glory, but it is because he 
suffers as a Christian. Professing himself a Christian, 
known as a Christian, drawing the fire of persecution 
as a Christian, the name itself the object of hostility 
and obloquy, he is still not to be ashamed of the name. 
Rather, the suffering is to be the highway to triumph. 
When martyrdom began, when his life began to be 
poured out as an offering, then should begin also the 
song of the Lord in the sublime victory of faith. "Let 
him glorify God in this name " ! The humble disciple 
stands in the arena, amid the curious gaze of excited, 
breathless thousands — stands there ready to suffer and 
to die for the name of the Lord Jesus. The hungry 
lions are held in leash, eager to spring upon their prey. 
Again and again is life promised him, if only he will 
deny that he is a Christian ; but again and again the 

voice is unfalteringly heard, borne over the vast still- 

(183) 



I84 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

ness of the throng — " I am a Christian. " It is the oft- 
seen picture of the blood of the martyrs becoming the 
seed of the Church. Myriads of them, fathers, mothers, 
young men, maidens, as they hear the wild cry, "To 
the lions! " steadily confess, and deny not. They bear 
witness in the tragic climax of their faith. Suffering, 
dying, the light of eternal life falling along the path of 
martyrdom, they glorify God in the name Christian. 

The exhortation is indeed thus emphatic. It ap- 
pealed to a fact ; it interpreted an experience. To 
wear the name Christian, and to suffer and die for it, 
is to glorify God. But, as we may rightly ask, Why is 
it that the name occurs so infrequently in the Word of 
God ? It is not a constant name of actual use in Apos- 
tolic history, as we read that history. It does not 
stand out time after time in the Acts of the Apostles, 
where we read of the planting and training of churches. 
It does not occupy place after place distinctly, pur- 
posely, in the progress of Christian doctrine, whether 
in Paul's first letter or John's last epistle. It is not 
current coin in the meetings and greetings of believers. 
Other names, many of them, are used, and used many 
a time, not only each one distinctly appropriate, but 
occurring so often in such a connection, and with such 
a purpose, that their very occurrence is an impressive 
lesson of the fullness and richness of the life worthy of 
the Gospel. There they are, sprinkled thickly on the 
New Testament pages — " disciples, " and " brethren, " 
and "saints;" or "those of the Way," "the elect," 
"the faithful." These are designations, specific and 
pointed in their recurrence, not to call up dozens of 
other terms and phrases that are more freely and 
fluidly used in luminous truths of Divine doctrine and 



THE NAME CHRISTIAN. 1 85 

spiritual experience. If, as is true, all of these names 
have, one by one, their appropriate signification, each 
one glowing with light and life, much more the name 
Christian. If disciple is used because it so modestly 
means a learner ; if, as we read of brethren, we know 
the time of humanity had come for men, on the large 
scale, to deny themselves and even to lay down their 
lives for one another, because the Son of God had died 
for them all ; if " God's husbandry " reveals the loving 
and patient hand of God in human lives; if "the body 
of Christ " represents how closely His people are joined 
together with one another, and all closely together with 
Him — I repeat, each term, each phrase, indeed glow- 
ing with light and life, still, above them all, compre- 
hending them all, shining in a glory that envelops all 
the rest, is the unitedly scriptural and catholic name 
Christian. 

Three times, and three times only, the name occurs 
in the New Testament. The way it occurs, where used 
and how used, makes plain why we find it so few times. 
But in these three Scriptures there is the secret of the 
glory of the name Christian. It is not for nothing that 
it appears to stand in the background in the New Tes- 
tament. In that fact, fairly weighed and understood, 
we shall see the reason why it shines conspicuously in 
the foreground of the progress of the Gospel to-day. 
Evidently not at all heard in the first days of the 
churches of Judea, evidently not current in Paul's 
preaching nor in Paul's practice amid his wide missions 
to the Gentiles, nowhere a constant note of Apostolic 
doctrine or writing, but a single note of one Apostle's 
pen, in that one time of the three times of its occur- 
rence it reveals itself in its origin, its history, its glory. 



1 86 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

There is the authority of an Apostle for us to glo- 
rify God in the name Christian ; and his authority is 
writ large in the origin, the history, the glory of the 
name. Let us make the name a study to-night in this 
order — its origin, its history, its glory. 

I. Its origin. It was first heard in Antioch. Ten 
years had gone by since the beginning in Jerusalem. 
The Gospel had proved itself the power of God unto 
salvation to the Jew first ; now it was saving also the 
Greek. Its universality was having a wide and con- 
spicuous demonstration. There could have been 
no choicer place for the Gospel to the Gentiles than 
the city of Antioch. The time was ripe ; the place was 
ready. It was a city, indeed, of this world. It 
stood third after Rome ; only Alexandria was ahead. 
Beautiful in situation along a broad-flowing river, encir- 
cled by massive walls, abounding in wealth, adorned by 
art, with sunny gardens and shady groves, it held a 
population of half a million, all sorts and conditions of 
men, Jew, Greek, Roman, Syrian, bondman, freeman. 
The Gospel came into contact for the first time with 
humanity in a mass, with rich and poor, with philoso- 
pher and slave, here in the populous, the luxurious, the 
immoral capital city of Syria. Barnabas and Saul busily 
glean the field so white unto harvest. "Even for 
a whole year " — "taught much people " — that is the 
record how they fulfilled their ministry of the Gospel. 
In such a place, Antioch, the third metropolis of the 
world ; at such a crisis, when Jew and Gentile by the 
thousands rejoiced together in the salvation of God; in 
the diligent ministry of the great Apostle to the Gen- 
tiles, in the first fruits of his world-wide mission, the 
name Christian first was heard. All these facts of 



THE NAME CHRISTIAN. 1 87 

burning interest, marking a veritable turning point of 
human history in the origin of a new appellation, we 
may rightly read between the lines in the classic Script- 
ure — "And it came to pass, that even for a whole 
year they were gathered together with the church, and 
taught much people ; and that the disciples were called 
Christians first in Antioch." 

The time of its origin, the place of its origin — 
where the stream flowed, where it was seen flowing — 
these are plain enough. But what was the source of 
the stream ? This is no idle question ; it may prof- 
itably be asked. Who called those disciples Christians 
first in Antioch ? Was the name of Divine origin, or of 
human origin? More strictly, did God give it directly, 
or did man of his own motion propose it ? Did Bar- 
nabas and Saul pronounce it by inspiration ? or did it 
spring up altogether from the outside ? 

These have been questions of controversy, serious, 
sometimes hot, even bitter. The interest of it has 
centered around the point whether it is right or wrong 
for the disciples of Christ to wear names that are 
plainly of human origin, and undeniably sectarian and 
divisive. Many who affirm that the name Christian is 
unsectarian and catholic, appeal to this Scripture as a 
proof-text of the Divine inspiration of the name. Many, 
on the other hand, who apologize for denominational 
titles of human origin, affirm that the word Christian 
itself is of human origin. And so the debate has run, 
the question poorly stated and as poorly argued on 
either side, the exegesis of one as lame as. the logic of 
the other, with a barren victory for both. Both, in- 
deed, seem to forget the practical settlement that we 
have the authority of an inspired Apostle to glorify 



1 88 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

God in the name Christian. They lose sight of the 
fact that, whatever its origin, Divine or human, it is 
Divinely authorized, it is Divinely endorsed, it is Di- 
vinely glorified. This simple, unquestionable fact 
should be a short, humbling lesson to us who, in 
preaching against divisive names among the people of 
God, rightly advocate the scriptural, unsectarian, cath- 
olic name Christian. This alone ought to save us from 
the false appeal to Acts xi. 26, as if it were a proof- 
text showing, beyond all doubt, that the name was 
given by inspired teachers of the Word. It is a down- 
right violence of exegesis, uusustained by scholarship, 
to be making a new translation of the Greek, in order 
to prove that Barnabas and Saul originated the name. 
With that kind of interpretation of a text, as Jowett 
says, " we had as well shut our grammars and lexicons, 
and draw lots for the sense." And it is just as fanciful 
to be quoting Isaiah's prophecy about a " new name," 
and finding the prophecy fulfilled just then and there 
at Antioch in the name Christian. 

The truth is, this Scripture, looked at alone, does 
not settle the question of the origin of the name one 
way or the other. What makes the weight ol evidence 
for its origin, is its history ; and the history of the 
name proves very clearly that it was given, not by 
Barnabas and Saul, but by the outside world in the 
spirit of reproach. The will of God was none the less 
in its origin, heard first, though it was, upon the lips 
of uninspired men. The time may have had its sig- 
nificance, the place may have had its significance ; the 
first pronouncement of the name then and there may 
truly and duly have its notable, emphatic record by 
the historian's orderly pen. But each note of it in the 



THE NAME CHRISTIAN. 1 89 

New Testament, and every fact of it in Apostolic his- 
tory, in Paul's day, in Peter's day, in the old age of 
John, points to it invariably, impressively, as a word 
of reproach in the eyes and in the mouths of a hostile, 
evil world. There is very good reason why Luke him- 
self never in the Book of the Acts calls the disciples 
Christians ; why Paul not once speaks it in salutation 
nor writes it in narration ; why it does not start up 
again and again in the New Testament Scriptures ; why it 
nowhere is heard in sermon or song, in prayer or praise, 
among congregations of believers. There is very good 
reason why it is heard so few times, three times only, 
and so particularly, so significantly, twice explicitly as 
a name of reproach in the hostility of the world. The 
origin of the name, as we shall see, shines in the course 
of its history, as the history also steadily, sublimely 
unfolds its secret of noontide glory. 

2. Its history. The second time of its occurrence 
is still in the Book of the Acts. It was a long time 
after its first occurrence, as the history of it appears. 
It falls from the lips of an enemy of the Cross ; and 
the tone of it is one of contempt and reproach. Paul 
preaches the Gospel before a royal audience — the pris- 
oner of Jesus Christ in the presence of the kings and 
rulers of this earth. Agrippa the king and his spouse 
— the Roman governor Festus — the chief captain, and 
the principal men of the city — into a dazzling scene of 
worldly pride and pomp, the bond-servant of the Lord 
is led, his chain rattling upon his arm. He tells the 
story of his own conversion, defends his own Apoitle- 
ship, while preaching the Gospel of the resurrection. 
Vividly, glowingly, he preaches Christ and Him cruci- 
fied ; pointedly and insistently, with his eye fixed on 



190 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

the king, he appeals to undoubted prophecies become 
indubitable facts. " King Agrippa, believest thou the 
prophets? I know that thou believest," charges the 
mighty man of God on the fellow-Jew, now visibly af- 
fected under the burning truth of the Spirit. There 
may have been a real stir of conscience, a sense of 
hunger and duty, with the king ; but it was smothered, 
stifled, under smooth words of. mingled compliment 
and contempt. Not ' 'Almost thou persuadest me to 
be a Christian," as we have long read in the old ver- 
sion; but, "With but little persuasion thou wouldest 
fain make me a Christian." "A Christian "—"wouldest 
fain make me a Christian" — it is spoken from the out- 
side, in smiling compliment, in courtly indifference, in 
a smooth undertone of contempt and reproach. The 
name is still in travail in the mind and speech of the 
Church itself. It is not yet doctrinal, practical, a 
usage, an ensign, a foremost and uppermost, full- 
formed and clear-cut name in her life and language. 
Paul's very answer — " I would to God, that whether 
with little or with much, not thou only, but also all 
that hear me this day, might become such as I am, ex- 
cept these bonds " — this very answer, in its beautiful 
fullness and courtesy, plainly indicates that the name 
has not yet become a familiar, purposeful name on the 
lips of the disciples themselves. 

All this is borne out, too, in the Scripture which 
is frequently quoted as referring to the name Christian. 
" Do not they blaspheme the honorable name by the 
which ye are called ? " is the accusation of the devout 
James concerning the rich opponents of his poor breth- 
ren. But he means not specifically the name Christian, 
but the name Christ, as the margin of the Revised 



THE NAME CHRISTIAN. I9I 

Version explains. The Greek is, ' ' the honorable name 
which was called upon you." It refers to the calling 
of a name, in the old Hebrew style, over persons, as 
a sign to whom they belonged. It is like Israel of old, 
saying, " Let my name be named upon them, and the 
name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac." The name 
Christ was called upon these brethren in their baptism ; 
it signified distinctly, specifically, whose they were, and 
whom they served. This was the honorable name, the 
very name of the Christian's Lord, which was blas- 
phemed among Jews and Gentiles, the name which, as 
the Roman governor Pliny long after this time relates, 
he caused to be reviled in open court. It all reveals 
the storm of hostility, reproach, persecution, steadily 
gathering to be poured upon the name that is above 
every name, as well as the name only a little lower — 
the name Christ, and naturally enough, and most sig- 
nificantly, the name Christian. The real history of the 
name, with its large weighty lesson as a name, in 
Apostolic days, and long days afterward, is focused in 
the language of Peter — " If a man suffer as a Christian." 
The history of it could not have been otherwise. 
It meant the closer and closer and closer contact of the 
Gospel with the world. It signified that the Gospel 
was making itself felt as a factor in all human life. 
The individual man had heard the Gospel of his salva- 
tion ; and myriads of men, one by one, scattered from 
Galatia to Spain, were going on their way, rejoicing in 
the forgiveness of sins. Jews, Greeks, Barbarians, Scyth- 
ians, bondmen, freemen, one man after another, in dis- 
tinct individuality, enter the kingdom of God. Such 
individual salvation is the plain and impressive fact of 
the New Testament — each man giving account of him- 



I9 2 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

self to God, each man warned and taught in the Apostolic 
ministry, name after name of men and women written 
down in everlasting individuality among the membership 
of the Church. But this is not the entire history of the 
progress of the Gospel. There is a Gospel of humanity, 
as well as of the individual soul. Man is not alone. 
He is in the family, and in society, and in government, 
and in the wide, wide world ; and it must be that the 
Gospel shall act not only individually, but organically. 
Both ways, in actions and reactions, the Gospel goes, 
working deeper than the individual, not stopping with 
one generation of persons, beginning to create a new 
spirit of the age, making itself felt not only among 
men, but on man in regenerative power. " The Gospel, 
which is come unto you," says Paul to the Colossians 
in congratulation; " even as it is also in all the world 
bearing fruit and increasing," he adds, triumphantly. It 
is the Gospel in closer and closer contact with society, 
institutions, customs, trades, in all of which it generates 
a new spirit, and for all of which it promulgates a new 
law. Paul preached the Gospel in Ephesus, and he 
preaches it in contact with idolatry, and in antagonism 
to the business of idol-making; and his preaching of 
the one true God, as Demetrius the idol-maker ac- 
knowledged, brought the trade into disrepute. Nay, 
already, as we read, hundreds of the citizens who had 
followed the business of fortune-telling came out pub- 
licly, under the influence of the Gospel, and confessed 
their evil deeds, and made a big bonfire of the tools 
of their business. " So mightily grew the word of the 
Lord, and prevailed." It is the Gospel's own account 
of its power in human society, as well as in the human 
soul. It was at work everywhere, regenerating the 



THE NAME CHRISTIAN. 1 93 

family, reconstructing the State, -ameliorating manners, 
changing the face of the world, transforming civilization. 

But mark how the work was done. There we shall 
see the name Christian keeping company with every 
step of the slow, painful victory, the plain outward sign 
of the inward travail and toil. The name, the name 
itself, is distinctly heard, again and again ; and the 
history of it is written in letters of blood. The history 
of the name Christian and the history of the great 
persecutions of the first three centuries write themselves 
together in the annals of the world. It is because the 
Gospel, in the life and upon the lips of the confessor 
of the Gospel, is now pressed, in a universal crisis, 
against Pagan government and Pagan society. Do you 
not already begin to recall the facts ? The disciple of 
Christ has old friends among the heathen, who fre- 
quently invite him to a social banquet where meat will 
be offered to idols. The disciple of Christ dwells in a 
family where still some of the members piously worship 
the ancestral dead. The disciple of Christ is a slave, 
who is bidden to assist his master in the daily worship 
of the gods. The disciple of Christ is in Caesar's army, 
and the decree has been issued that the soldiers- must 
bow the knee to the image of the Emperor. It is a 
crisis of conflict between two religions — the religion of 
Christ, and idolatry ; and the crisis is terrible because 
idolatry is the legalized religion, the religion of the 
Empire in law, authority, precedent, custom, and the 
Gospel seems to be set immovably against it all. 

The Gospel was set against idolatry everywhere, 
whether in the family or in the State ; and the conflict 
was bound to come, especially when millions of Roman 
citizens had confessed the Son of God. On a larger 



194 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. » 

scale now, no longer in provinces here and there, no 
longer because many individuals of this or that city- 
have confessed a new faith, but because " the word 
of the truth of the gospel" is abroad— proclaimed 
throughout the world, a spirit in the air, a report in 
the streets, a rule of duty in daily conduct ; because 
crowds of its confessors are heard confessing a King of 
kings and Lord of lords ; because Caesar claimed allegi- 
ence to himself, first and chief of all, while the disciples 
of Christ worshiped first and only the one true and 
living God, — in this dread crisis, when the decree went 
forth, persecution by law, the executioner's ax began 
to fall, and the hungry lions leaped upon their prey, 
and the confessors of the Gospel were dying. 

The history of it all signalized a name. It was a 
name of reproach because those who wore it were 
persecuted. Among themselves they spoke of "the 
disciples," "the brethren," "the faithful," "the one 
body, " " the Church " — spoke these terms and phrases 
with sweet, rich thoughts of one another, in sweet, 
tender feelings toward one another, in sweet, deep 
faith of the Gospel's power and hope. But as they 
stood before the hostile world, the world itself pro- 
nounced one name. The name was Christian. It was 
a name of reproach, not because the reproach grew 
out of the root of the name, but because the 
reproach was heaped upon the name by those that 
hated the ones to whom it was applied. It was the 
name between the Church and the world, and histori- 
cally, notably, indelibly, significantly as the world per- 
secuted the Church. The Church began to wear it 
humbly and patiently. It stood for suffering. It be- 
came the test of faith. It furnished the exact question 



THE NAME CHRISTIAN. 195 

of trial — ' ' Are you a Christian ? " It showed the very 
spirit of the life of the confessor of the Gospel, the 
spirit of his Lord, the spirit of self-sacrifice, the willing- 
ness to deny one's self, and to take up one's cross 
daily, and, if need be, to die for truth in obedience to 
duty. So the conflict raged, the sword of persecution 
ready to drink the blood of the martyr, and the martyr 
patient, steadfast, brave, triumphant, simply confess- 
ing, "lam a Christian." It was a conflict between 
the sword of Caesar and the Spirit of God, between 
the weapons of the flesh and the weapons of the truth, 
between the power of the crown and the power of the 
Cross. So the victory came. The martyr's blood 
became the seed of the Church, and the confessor's 
faith overcame the world. Silently, slowly, steadily, 
surely, the foundations of Paganism began to crumble, 
and, in lives of self-sacrifice, obedient even unto death, 
a new, transformed civilization began to appear. The 
martyr had glorified God in the name Christian, the 
name reproached and persecuted, and the glory of God 
now rested upon the name as it shone more and more 
in the transformations of the world. "Behold, how 
these Christians love one another ! " said the Pagan as 
he marked the lives of those whom he hated. ' ' What 
women these Christians have ! ' ' exclaimed a Pagan 
teacher of rhetoric when he heard from the lips of a 
Christian son the self-sacrifices of a Christian mother. 
The name, the very name Christian, had become the 
trophy of the Gospel in its conquests throughout the 
world. First the name of suffering, the name that 
shone strikingly in the battle of the Church against the 
world, it triumphed at last over the world in a baptism 
of glory. 



I96 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

3. Its glory. Do we not already see its excellent 
glory ? Can we not understand why, occurring so 
little in the New Testament, not at all a familiar, current 
name with the disciples themselves in their meetings and 
greetings in the circle of the Church, yet in one notable 
Scripture it should be Divinely endorsed and Divinely 
glorified, and therefore forever Divinely authorized? 
If it had to be at first the name of suffering, so perse- 
cuted that an Apostle must exhort those that suffered 
for it, not to be ashamed of it, there necessarily must 
lie the secret of its glory. The law of the Cross be- 
came the law also of the name. The name Christian 
died, to live. It lost its life for Christ's sake, and 
found it. It worked its way to power and honor in the 
self-sacrifices which signalized it ; and it became forever 
the name of humanity under the regeneration of the 
Gospel. 

How rich the name Christian is, how broad, how 
vitally historical, a landmark, a clear distinction, a 
luminous ideal ! It is a name for the humble disciple 
of Christ; and it is a name for ages, and institutions, 
and laws, and customs. We may grant the stains that 
its professed friends have frequently cast upon it ; but 
its glory has outlived mistakes and misuses of the 
Church, and shines and will shine in unfading splen- 
dor. Is this not the Christian era ? Is it an idle word 
to speak of a Christian nation or a Christian com- 
munity ? Are Christian sentiment and Christian stat- 
utes meaningless phrases ? Is there not vital truth in 
the familiar description, a gentleman and a Christian, 
or a Christian gentleman ? Is it empty talk when we 
say that such and such conduct becomes a Christian, 
or does not become him? Everywhere, distinctly, in- 



THE NAME CHRISTIAN. I97 

structively, both a lesson and a standard, has not the 
name, the very name Christian, filled with the glory of 
God, entered into human life, where it remains inerad- 
icably for its mighty influences of good, the sound of 
the name so true and sweet because the heart of it is so 
healthy and pure? Undeniably our civilization is what 
it is because it is Christian, really and professedly so. 
It is not atheistic ; it is not infidel ; it is not Pagan. 
Our own nation has been built by the toils, in the 
prayers and tears, of those who professed and called 
themselves Christians — whether the Puritan on Ply- 
mouth Rock, or the Dutchman on Manhattan Island, 
or the Quaker in the forests of Pennsylvania, or the 
Romanist along the shores of Maryland, or the Hu- 
guenot in the Carolinian swamps. You may charge 
that Christians still go to war, and that the nineteenth 
century has been soaked in the blood of Christians 
who slew one another; I say that war has been stayed 
between Christians, who appealed to the very name, 
and that Christians, glorying in the name and writing 
it upon societies and hospitals and nurseries, have miti- 
gated or uprooted old-time evils of war, and at last 
conquered and established honorable peace. You may 
point to crime, to barbarisms, to suffering, to squalor, 
to wretchedness crouching almost under the shadow 
of cathedrals and churches. I appeal to the past, to 
what has been done in the name Christian — whether 
slowly it marked the emancipation of women or the in- 
alienable rights of little children in the long travail of 
centuries, or whether suddenly one day, in the year of 
our Lord 404, as the vast amphitheatre of bloodthirsty 
spectators gloated over the savage show of the gladi- 
tors, it signalized that the barbarous game then and 



I98 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

there forever ceased as a Christian monk, in the pas- 
sion of self-sacrifice, leaped into the arena, and smote 
the heart of humanity by receiving the blow of 
both swords on his devoted head. And I appeal to 
the present, that to-day, wherever on the large scale, 
not with the puny arm of an individual, but with the 
love and might of thousands banded together, gigantic 
work goes on against sin and ignorance and want and 
wrong, full high advanced appears in letters of living 
light the name, the name Divinely endorsed and glorified 
— " Woman's Christian Temperance Union," "Chris- 
tian Education Society, " organization after organ- 
ization for social reform and progress glorifying God, 
and blessing man, in the name Christian. 

The glory of the name to-day gives its rebuke 
tellingly against sectarian and divisive names among 
the followers of the Lord. Scripture, history, logic, 
all settle that the name is catholic, Divinely endorsed 
and Divinely authorized. In its presence of light and 
glory, we are hearing less and less of that pitiful, 
would-be indifference, What 's in a name? There is in 
a name what is in it. A rose by any other name will 
doubtless smell as sweet ; but rose and fragrance are 
so one, the fact and the name, that laws and decrees 
could never divorce them. Names are spirit and life. 
Words are not merely the signs of ideas ; they are the in- 
carnation of ideas. Words are not simply the dress of 
thought ; they are the embodiment of thought. Words 
are not only the coin of speech ; they are the growths 
of speech, rooted in the very life of the soul. Truth 
generates a word in the subtle laboratory of the mind, 
and the word becomes a star, and shines forever. Out 
of the heart of human experience, sometimes the lone- 



THE NAME CHRISTIAN. 1 99 

liness and patience of one man, again the wide and 
deep knowledge of one age, a word is born with wings, 
and it flies to and fro as an everlasting sign of peace or 
hope. Thought and words, duty and words, beauty 
and words — how they are wedded in all the life of man, 
very life of his very life, begotten, not made, in the 
depths of the soul. There is in words and names what 
is in them. There is in the great words and names 
what is in them — truth, spirit, life, experience, happi. 
ness, sorrow ; in them not by accident, not for fashion, 
notasawhim, but as spiritual forces, to generate, or 
to cleanse, or to transform, or to signalize — the very 
word or name itself henceforth as real and immortal as 
truth or life. There is in great words and names what 
man has put into them, what God has breathed into 
them — what has grown into them, what lives in them 
eternally, in a unity of life and expression indissoluble. 
Home — liberty — love ! — the life of God, and. the life 
of man, together in them — will you try to waive them 
indifferently aside, or to change them ? Christian ! — 
who, before its glory, its good, its power, can actually 
ask, " What's in a name? " 

There is so much of glory, good, power in the name, 
that sectarian and divisive names are losing their hold 
on those that wear them. The feeling is growing that 
Christian is catholic and unsectarian, Divinely author- 
ized, and that it is the rebuke of party names among 
God's people with their sure tendencies of pride and 
division. All of that is in these exclusive names of 
denomination or sect : they foster pride, they work 
divisively, they emphasize separateness ; they keep the 
children of God apart from one another by unscript- 
ural, partisan tests of fellowship. Party names in re- 



200 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

ligion mean party divisions in religion, in greater or 
less degree. "I am of Paul," said one of the Corin- 
thians, who gloried in the liberty of Paul's free Gospel. 
"I am of Cephas," cried others, as they proudly 
remembered Moses and the Law. ' ' I am of Apollos, " 
boasted another set, to whom Apollos's rhetoric and 
eloquence had become a snare. Paul condemned 
it. ' ' Is Christ divided ? " he trenchantly asks. ' ' Was 
Paul crucified for you ? or were ye baptized into 
the name of Paul?" Party names in the Church 
are wrong, according to Paul. In them are jealousy 
and strife ; in them is more or less division. No ; 
not the names of inspired Apostles, not even these 
must the disciples of Christ ever be seen or heard 
to wear. The lesson is overwhelmingly plain and em- 
phatic, that against party names and party strife in the 
church of Corinth Paul sounds a loud, loud warning, 
and prays for an undivided and indivisible union in 
that great congregation. ' ' I beseech you, brethren, 
through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all 
speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions 
among you ; but that ye be perfected together in the 
same mind and in the same judgment. ? ' 

It is this fact of the divisiveness and exclusiveness 
of every party name, that is gradually opening the eyes 
of so many Christians to the scripturalness and cathol- 
icity of the name Christian. The party name can not 
be scripturally defended. Not one Scripture can be 
educed in apology for it. "I am of Calvin," or (< Iam 
of Luther," or " I am of Wesley," or "I am of 
Campbell " — you can not justify it by the Scriptures. 
Whether you speak it in personal pride or in party de- 
fense, it is wrong according to the Word of God. The 



THE NAME CHRISTIAN. 201 

party name both divides and excludes, inevitably. It 
exists because of a party, and it is worn for the sake of 
a party, dividing those that wear it from him whom 
it excludes for his not wearing it. No matter what the 
name, what the origin, what the meaning, what the 
history, what the associations, the party name among 
the followers of Jesus Christ is divisive and exclusive. 
The name may be Baptist, from an ordinance of the 
Gospel ; it may be Episcopalian, or Presbyterian, or 
Congregational, from the polity of the Church ; it may 
be Methodist, from the manner of life of those to whom 
it was originally applied. All of these names may 
have honest motives, and may express purposes or 
aspects of truth, and may suggest mighty historic 
memories, and may stir sweet personal affections. 
Nevertheless, they are party names among the followers 
of Christ. They are divisive and exclusive names. 
There is something in them. There is much in them. 
There is pride in them, and power in them — power in 
them to divide and exclude Christians from one another. 
They carry divisions, and they perpetuate exclusions. 
There is pride in them, and power in them — power to 
caricature truth, or to propagate error. They can but 
be partisan for any meaning and use. To accept a 
party name from a man or from a doctrine, from an 
ordinance or from a polity, to espouse it, wear it, glory 
in it, is unjustifiable in the light of God's Word. The 
custom is divisive and exclusive ; and the Holy Spirit, 
speaking by the mouth of Paul, exhorts, " that there 
be no divisions among you." 

Do we want a better proof that the party name is 
felt to be an evil, than the frank utterances of godly men 
concerning it? Its divisiveness and exclusiveness are 



202 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

confessed sometimes in the very apologies or personal 
gratulations of it. " I thank God that in many respects 
I am a Methodist, " once said a pious member in a union 
Sunday-school convention. ' ' I thank God, " he went on 
saying, " that in some respects I am a Southern Meth- 
odist." " But I thank God," he added fervently, "that 
in many more respects I am a Christian." It was an 
honest, manly confession, as we all recognized who heard 
it. But the heart of it, glorying in the catholic name 
Christian, carried a real undertone of rebuke of the 
party name for which the brother was thankful. As 
far as he espoused the name Methodist, as long as he 
maintained it, he that far and that long divided and 
excluded himself from other Christians. Stronger and 
more explicit than this admission was the thanksgiving 
of a Presbyterian minister over the conversions in one 
of Mr. Moody's great meetings — " I thank God, 
brethren, that Mr. Moody is making neither Presby- 
terians nor Baptists nor Methodists, but simply Christ- 
ians." And just as frank and direct as this, was the 
speech of a Congregational preacher before the vener- 
able American Board of Foreign Missions — " I have n't 
a dollar to spare in making Congregationalists ; but 
who would not give all in missionary work to make 
Christians ? " What is the downright meaning of such 
words ? They are the beginning of the end of party- 
names among those that profess and call themselves 
Christians. That is their real meaning. It can not be 
anything else. It is the feeling, vague or profound, 
that these party names are an evil — that they are weak, 
need excuse, call for explanations and limitations, at 
times must be put into the background, and even for 
a while be forgotten. It is the matter-of-fact, common- 



THE NAME CHRISTIAN. 20^ 

sense logic, the logic of the heart hearing God's Word, 
that these party names, as far as they are professed, 
as far as they are insisted on, are necessarily divisive 
and exclusive, dividing and excluding Christians from 
one another. These men of God could not speak thus 
unless they felt that the party names of Christians are 
an evil, and that, in the full truth of the Gospel and in 
the full reality of the spiritual life, they have no proper 
place whatever. As they compare the party name 
with the name Christian, and glory rather in the latter, 
as they apologize for the party name, or limit it, or 
silence it, or forget it, there is the sure sign that the Spirit 
of truth is among them, and that as His light and life 
more and more fill their lives, sectarian names, divisive 
names, exclusive names, fading and withering, will fall 
away, as lifeless leaves drop to the ground before the 
healthy vigor of trees in the springtime. 

But, you ask, is there not danger that the very 
name Christian may be professed in a sectarian spirit ? 
May it not become a note of division and exclusion ? 
Indeed there is such danger. I see the danger, and 
candidly admit it. The very catholic name Christian 
may become the shibboleth of a sect, the badge of a 
party. The like of such a danger was threateningly 
at work in the church of Corinth. The name of Christ 
Himself was there becoming a party name. Not only 
did some, glorying in Paul's free Gospel, declare, "I 
am of Paul " ; and others, remembering Moses and the 
Law, "lam of Cephas"; and others, captivated by 
Apollos's rhetoric and eloquence, " I am of Apoilos " ; 
but another set still, revolting from the authority of 
human names, and professing the name of Christ, came 
under Paul's charge of contentions in the congregation, 



204 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

as they spoke up, "I of Christ." And why? Be- 
cause, professing the name of Christ, they were begin- 
ning to use it divisively and exclusively. According 
to Paul's accusation, they that said "I of Christ" 
were guilty of party spirit and party strife equally v/ith 
him who boasted, " I of Paul," or " I of Cephas," or 
" I of Apollos. " They were right in refusing to glory 
in the name of Paul : Paul was not crucified for them, 
they were not baptized into the name of Paul. The 
cross and baptism joined them to Christ, and Christ's 
they were, and they were right in glorying, ' ' I belong 
to Christ/' so long as they did not boast the name 
divisively and exclusively. But that was their guilt. 
In their saying " I of Christ," they so said it, so in- 
terpreted it, so applied it as plainly to show that, in 
their estimation, they were more of Christ's than these 
other brethren who were professing, some Paul's name, 
others Cephas's, others Apollos's. And the aggrava- 
tion of their guilt was that, in crying out, "I of 
Christ," they purposed to profess that Christ was more 
of theirs by their depreciating wholly the human teacher, 
inspired though he might be. A Paul, a Cephas, an 
Apollos was nothing to them : they stigmatized his 
nothingness purposely, in their exclusive boast of the 
name of Christ. Thus their contention was becoming 
the most divisive of all, in that, while they thought they 
were magnifying the name of Christ, they were making 
it a mere party name on a level with the name of Paul, 
in contrast with the name of Cephas, in antagonism to 
the name of Apollos, and were in danger of shutting 
themselves off entirely from fellowship with those that 
were already dividing themselves in their separate 
names. 



THE NAME CHRISTIAN. 2C>5 

We may read the lesson for ourselves, indeed. All 
of them were wrong. It was wrong for some to boast, 
" I am of Paul," exalting Paul's name to a level with 
the name of Him who was crucified for them, into 
whose name they had been baptized. It was wrong for 
some to boast, " I of Cephas," and so boasting as to 
obscure the name of Christ. It was wrong for some 
to boast, "I am of Apollos, " and so boasting as to 
disown any good for themselves in Paul or Cephas. It 
was worst of all for others to boast, ' ' And I of Christ, " 
and so boasting as to reject any possession whatever of 
Paul, or Cephas, or Apollos, to proclaim aloud a total 
independence of each one in their total dependence on 
Christ. All of them were wrong. It was wrong for 
one to say, "I of Paul," as if Cephas was nothing to 
him. It was wrong for one to say, "I of Apollos," 
as if Paul was nothing to him. It was just as wrong to 
be dividing the human teachers as to be dividing Christ. 
"What then is Apollos? and what is Paul?" the 
wholesome lesson reads. " Ministers through whom ye 
believed." They are nothing, neither he that plants 
nor he that waters, compared with God, who gives the 
increase. But he that plants, and he that waters, are 
one ; they are both necessary ; they are not to be di- 
vided ; they are God's fellow-workers. What are they 
then to the Corinthians ? still the wholesome lesson 
reads. Not something to be divided out and boasted 
of exclusively in parties ; but not one of them to be 
despised nor disowned. And why? Listen! — how 
wholesome the lesson is. Listen to the very reason 
of the exhortation, "Let no one glory in men:" 
'•For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, 
or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things 



206 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

present, or things to come ; all are yours ; and ye are 
Christ's ; and Christ is God's." When a disciple could 
say, not, "I am Paul's," but "Paul is mine, and 
Cephas is mine, and Apollos is mine," then he is right 
in standing up and boasting, " I am Christ's. " The 
name of Christ becomes not the shibboleth of a sect, 
not a divisive and exclusive name, when the human 
teacher is not despised nor disowned, is not boasted of 
as an exclusive master, nor followed as a divisive leader, 
but is regarded as one of the servants of truth, and 
the name of Jesus is the name in which we bow the 
knee, to the glory of God the Father. 

Are not your own hearts swiftly reading the lesson 
still for ourselves ? Does one say, " I am of Luther," 
or "I am of Calvin," or "I am of Wesley," or " I 
am of Campbell, " or "I am of Christ"? .Divisive 
and exclusive are we, there is contention among us, 
if we glory in any of the human names separately, and 
obscure the Divine name of Christ. Divisive and ex 
elusive are we, if we think to exalt the name of Christ 
by despising or disowning any good for ourselves in 
these human teachers. Who was Luther ? The prophet 
of liberty of conscience, who emphasized, critically and 
seasonably, justification by faith. Who was Calvin? 
The teacher who emphasized, critically and seasonably, 
the sovereignty of God against the craft of priests and 
the pride of kings. Who was Wesley ? The teacher 
who emphasized, critically and seasonably, the need of 
holiness and zeal. Who was Campbell ? The teacher 
who emphasized, critically and seasonably, the need of 
Christian union, against the lamentable divisions of 
Christendom. Are we not divisive and exclusive, if we 
can not say all together, in view of the good accom- 



THE NAME CHRISTIAN. 207 

plished by each one of these teachers in the history of 
the kingdom of God, "Luther is mine, and Calvin is 
mine, and Wesley is mine, and Campbell is mine " ? 
And is it not the very way not to glory in these men, 
to claim this universal possession of them, all of them 
ours, while all of us together heartily say, in throb- 
bing gratitude, "And we are Christ's, and Christ is 
God's " ? 

So also is the name Christian. The same lesson 
speaks concerning it. Divinely authorized, Divinely 
endorsed, it may be used to promote the unity of the 
Spirit, or it may be used divisively and exclusively. 
It is catholic and unsectarian. Surely the time has 
come, in this age of the advocacy of Christian union, 
when you and I may say, subordinating or ignoring or 
disavowing all sectarian names, ' * I thank God that I am 
a Christian." That confession demonstrates that we re- 
gard the name as catholic and unsectarian. But, I ask 
you, I ask you in deep seriousness, where is the full 
good of such a confession of the name, if we have any 
use of sectarian names whatever? Think about the mat- 
ter. Is it enough just to subordinate, or for the time 
to ignore, the sectarian names, while glorifying God in 
the name Christian ? Why should they be used at 
all ? Why should they not be disavowed altogether ? 
Can they be used at all except divisively and exclusively? 
When one says, "lama Methodist," and another, "I 
a Baptist," are they not that far divided ? But you ask 
me, " What right have you to use the name Christian 
alone ? Is there not danger that you will profess that 
in a sectarian spirit?" Yes; there is such danger, as 
I disavow all names not Divinely authorized, and pro- 
fess to be simply a Christian. If, while I profess to be 



208 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

simply a Christian, I deny that others are Christians 
who profess also other names, then I use the name di- 
visively and exclusively. But I have the right to pro- 
fess and call myself a Christian, disavowing all secta- 
rian names, if I do not deny the name to others who 
love and serve Christ. Nay, endeavoring to keep the 
unity of the Spirit, with Paul's teaching before my eyes, 
I dare not glory in the names of men or ordinances 
or polity or methods, inevitably divisive and exclusive 
as those names are. With the name Christian, Di- 
vinely authorized, historically catholic, confessedly un- 
sectarian, I must call myself by that name, and by no 
divisive and exclusive name. For the very reason that 
I acknowledge you to be a Christian, I do not sectar- 
ianize the name in using it to the disavowal of the sec- 
tarian name that you also profess. We who are advo- 
cating the Scripture doctrine of Christian union do 
not claim to be the only Christians. We profess to be 
Christians only, to the disavowal of all sectarian names. 
We thank God for the good of any teacher in the his- 
tory of the kingdom of God ; we will emphasize, when 
needed, the integrity of the ordinances of the Word; 
we will follow the line and liberty of church polity, ac- 
cording to the New Testament ; we will advocate meth- 
ods and expedients in furtherance of the Gospel. But 
we dare not coin nor accept any names of these, nor 
wear them, espouse them, use them divisively and 
exclusively. If others profess and call themselves 
Christians, and then profess and call themselves, even 
though faintly, by other names which are inevitably 
divisive and exclusive, the responsibility is theirs, not 
ours. If we profess and call ourselves Christians, dis- 
avowing all sectarian names while we gladly acknowl* 



THE NAME CHRISTIAN. 200, 

edge those as Christians who are using also these divi- 
sive and exclusive names, we are sure that we are not 
aggravating strife among the people of God, but are 
advocating the truth that breaks down walls of division 
and fosters the unity of the Spirit. 

I know that the disavowal of all sectarian names, 
by itself will not be the cure of the divisions of Christ- 
endom. There is, indeed, needed back of this course 
the cure of the sectarian spirit. There must first be 
more love to God and man, more humility, more piety, 
more prayer, more good works, more world-wide evan- 
gelization. But these different names— Baptist, Meth- 
odist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Congregationalist, 
not to mention one-tenth of them — are divisive and 
exclusive. They are divisive not only in effect, but 
divisive in tendency. They not only express division, 
but augment and perpetuate division. They are in the 
way of Christian union. They entangle all endeavors 
to keep the unity of the Spirit. They are so many 
snags in the channels of brotherly love. They must 
no longer be defended in sectarian pride, nor excused 
in thoughtless sophistries, nor joked about in senti- 
mental good-will, but disavowed and disused, if the 
rising tide of Christian union would sweep more rap- 
idly and more sublimely to the consummation of the 
kingdom of God. The time must come when you and 
I must feel our individual responsibility, while glorify- 
ing God in the name Christian, not to profess a divisive 
and exclusive name. We may feel that responsibility, 
and discharge it, confessing the truth in love, in deep 
affection for some living who still wear the divisive 
name, in tender memory of some departed who wore 
it. I can recall the saintly face of an aged grand- 



2IO EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

mother, as she pored in prayer over God's Word, 
feeding upon it and growing thereby unto salvation. 
But, in the light of God's Word, I can not profess and 
call myself by the divisive and exclusive name Bap- 
tist : I must profess and call myself a Christian, and a 
Christian only. I look hungrily upon the dignified 
portrait of the father whom I never knew, and my 
heart forever laments that it was my lot not to know 
him on earth ( I shall see and know him there ! ), and 
to hear him humbly pray, and to see the quiet, beau- 
tiful faith in which he lived and died. But, in the 
light of God's Word, I can not profess and call myself 
by the divisive and exclusive name Episcopalian : I 
must profess and call myself a Christian, and a Chris- 
tian only. I look around me to-day, and I behold men 
and women who walk with God , and glory in the cross of 
Christ, and at their feet I could sit to learn more of 
piety and love. But, in the light of God's Word, I 
can not profess and call myself by the divisive and ex- 
clusive name of Methodist, nor of Presbyterian, nor of 
Congregationalist : I must profess and call myself a 
Christian, and a Christian only. I must profess and 
call myself a Christian, and a Christian only, as against 
any and all divisive and exclusive names in the Church 
of God. 

It is the unsectarian and catholic name, Divinely 
approved, Divinely authorized. Tried in the hot fires 
of persecutions, baptized in the blood of martyrs, it 
has become a radiant name of glory in the progress of 
the Gospel. Here is the high privilege — we may glo- 
rify God in the name Christian. Redeemed in Christ, 
receiving and not rejecting your salvation, glorying in 
the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, baptized into the 



THE NAME CHRISTIAN. 211 

name of Christ, you may glorify God in the name 
Christian. Do you believe in your heart on Jesus 
Christ ? Will you confess your faith, and espouse the 
name, and wear it with honor and courage before the 
world? Will you wear it humbly in brotherly love, 
and steadily refuse any divisive and exclusive name of 
Christendom, and in the spirit of Christ stand as a wit- 
ness, by your very name, for the unity of the body of 
Christ ? Decide here and now, in the light of the glory 
of the name Christian. Will you, as you live, or as 
you die, while you are happy, when you suffer, in the 
days of thy youth, and in a good old age, in the busy 
rounds of work, or in the pauses of rest, in life, in 
death, will you glorify God in the name Christian ? 



SERMON X. 
The Fear of Hell. 



X. 

THE FEAR OF HELL. 

11 And be not afraid of them which kill the body, but are not able to 
kill the soul : but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and 
body in hell."— Matt. x. 28. 

"The Revised Version has done away with Hell " 
— so we all have seen the report going the rounds of 
the newspapers, and such has been even the talk of the 
street or of some familiar gathering. The way was 
freely open for the news. It was not merely that the 
drunkard or the libertine was ready to hear that there 
would be no place of torment beyond the grave for him 
in his wickedness. The spread of the report had some- 
thing else to help it on besides the congratulations of 
selfish hearts. The fact seemed to have a dignity of 
support from the very voices of learned men. Certain 
pulpits plead aloud for what they called ' ' eternal 
hope; " certain pens declared that any belief of a Hell 
is antiquated, the rubbish of medieval theology, and 
unworthy of the spirit of Jesus Christ. Indeed, the 
opposition to such doctrine has become bolder and more 
aggressive still in making home-thrust charges on the 
matter. ' ' Has there not been a change in the preach- 
ing on this subject ? Do you hear it often from the 
pulpit of even those who profess still to believe the 
doctrine? Would the people listen at all to one of the 
old-time sermons on hell ? Is not such a dogma practi- 
cally abandoned in the majority of churches nowadays ? " 

(«5) 



2l6 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

There is one question, the supreme question, that nine 
times out of ten goes unasked in all this talk about 
Hell. The real concern for you and me is, not first 
whether there has been a revolution in the preaching 
on this subject ; not first whether thousands of pulpits 
are silent and silenced on the doctrine; not first whether 
Christendom any longer believes its creeds concerning 
Hell. No. What I want to know, and what you 
should want to know, is whether the Word of God 
teaches that there is a Hell. Is there a Hell according 
to the Word ? Is the doctrine plain enough to be un- 
derstood ? Ought we to know the doctrine ? Is a man 
simply deceiving himself when, with the Scriptures 
scattered at his feet, he shuts his eyes to the doctrine, 
and blindly refuses to examine candidly whether the 
doctrine be so ? Especially, with the Revised Version 
of the Holy Bible in our hands, what light does it 
throw on the doctrine? Has it made any changes in 
the Scriptures of the doctrine ? Has it actually ' ' done 
away with" Hell? These are the questions that we 
ought to think about. With consciences in us, with 
the knowledge of good and evil, with the sense of duty 
burning in our hearts, with the judgment of God 
already begun there, what does God's Word teach con- 
cerning Hell ? 

Do I mean to deny that there has taken place a 
momentous change in the voice of the pulpit in regard 
to this doctrine ? I concede the fact of such a change. 
The change is strikingly plain as to all the spirit and 
style of the doctrine. You elders in Israel remember 
the old-time way. It was not only that there was many 
a sermon on Hell, but each sermon was lurid with its 
awful fires, and audiences trembled and groaned as 



THE FEAR OF HELL. 2\J 

they heard nothing but thunder tones of the judgment 
to come. The preacher's look was one of frenzy ; his 
manner breathed vengeance. There were terrible de- 
scriptions of death. There were frightful stories of 
death-bed scenes. There were appalling pictures of 
the torments of the damned. Many a time the day of 
judgment was dramatized at length, and the fiery 
speaker would enact a part with hideous notions of that 
day of wrath. Yes ; such a style of the doctrine has 
been changed, irreversibly. The presentation of the 
doctrine was wrong. It was not authorized in God's 
Word. It has necessarily fallen into disrepute. The 
weak point of the old-fashioned preaching on Hell was 
that it addressed chiefly, if not only, the imagination. 
In the extreme form it stirs feelings simply, with an 
overwhelming force at first ; but it works little or no 
conviction of judgment; and when the emotions have 
subsided, a reaction sets in, and men believe less in 
a Hell than before. Such a manner of doctrine was 
not true to the spirit and style of God's Word, and not 
true to man's conscience in the sight of God. There 
need be no surprise at the silence of preacher after 
preacher on the subject. If there had been no other 
elements at work in such a change of attitude, the vio- 
lence and caricature of the pieaching of other days 
would account a good deal why the very word Hell is 
seldom heard in the pulpit, and why any doctrine of it 
seems to have been forgotten altogether. 

But, you ask, how about the Revised Version ? 
what has occasioned the report that it no longer teaches 
a Hell? Very well. Let us know the facts. We 
may open our Bible, and read them for ourselves. It 
is true that in not a few verses of the old King James's 



2l8 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

version, in Scripture after Scripture, where the word 
" hell " is found, we shall, if we examine the change of 
these in the Revised Version, no longer find this term. 
The changes of the word in these passages are radical 
changes. It is not simply a different word for the 
same idea ; it is a different word for a different idea. 
The common notion of "hell" is not taught in the 
verses where those changes occur. These radical 
changes, these weighty changes, are true. But is the 
doctrine of Hell still taught in the Word of God? 
Shall we find it still in the most scholarly version of 
the English Bible ? I beg you to go with me candidly 
to-night over these Scriptures. Let us take time, in a 
fair interest of mind, in a serious interest of heart, to 
see what is so concerning this doctrine. 

I. Let us note this revision of the word in the Old 
Testament. 

The word "hell" occurs in King James' version of 
the Old Testament thirty-two times, viz. : Deut. xxxii. 
22; II. Sam. xxii. 6; Job xi. 8, xxvi. 6; Psa. ix. 7, 
xvi. 10, xviii. 5, lv. 15, lxxxvi. 13, cxvi. 3, cxxxix. 
8; Prov. v. 5, vii. 27, ix. 18, xv. 11, 24, xxiii. 14, 
xxvii. 20; Isa. v. 14, xiv. 9, 11, 15, xxviii. 15, 18, 
lvii. 9; Ezek. xxxi. 16, 17, xxxii. 21, 27; Amos ix. 
2; Jon. ii. 2 : Hab. ii. 5. 

In the Revised Version, instead of occurring thirty- 
two times, it occurs only fourteen times. In the verses 
where the changes occur, the changes are made, un- 
mistakably, because "hell," as we think of the word, 
not only does not express the original Hebrew, but 
misleads the English reader. As to the changes in 
these eighteen places, we have, in three of them (Deut. 
xxxii. 22, Psa. lv. 15, lxxxvi. 13), the word "pit/* 



THE FEAR OF HELL. 2 1 9 

and in the remaining fifteen (II. Sam. xxii. 6 ; Job xi. 8, 
xxvi. 6; Psa. ix. 17, xvi. 10, xviii. 5, cxvi. 3, cxxxix. 
8; Prov. v. 5, vii. 27, ix. 18, xv. 11, 24, xxiii. 14, 
xxvii. 20) the peculiarly strange word Sheol, written 
with a capital S. Not only are these radical changes 
made, but even in the fourteen places where the word 
"hell" remains, this strange word Sheol is placed in 
the margin, with the remark that it is the term used in 
the Hebrew. 

The interest in these significant changes as to "hell " 
in the Revised Version turns on the meaning of SheoL 
It is a strange word to English eyes and ears. What 
does it mean ? Why have these scholars put it fifteen 
times into the text as a substitute for "hell " ? Why 
have they placed it in the margin as an explanation, or 
a possible substitute for "hell " in the fourteen other 
places where " hell " is still retained? What is its 
meaning, that its place in the Bible, instead of "hell," 
must do away with the common notion of "hell" in 
the passages where the new word occurs ? 

The Hebrew word Sheol meant to the Jewish mind 
the unseen world whither went the spirit of man at 
death. It was the under-world, the land of darkness, 
of the shadow of death, where the light is as darkness, 
with its gates and bars, its subterranean depths swal- 
lowing men alive, its snares taking hold of the living ; 
insatiable, stern and cruel. It stood thus for the unseen 
world, as pictured in the Jewish mind, without any ref- 
erence to pains and penalties that souls might suffer 
there as a final retribution. Amid all the references of 
the Old Testament to Sheol, representing it as death, 
the grave, the dark under-world, it is true that not one 
of them describes Sheol as what we now understand 



220 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

by "hell." Where, therefore, the English reader of the 
Bible comes across the "hell" of the King James ver- 
sion, and in such a connection that he would be led to 
think of it in the light of the popular notion, there the 
revisers have struck out "hell" and substituted SkeoL 
For instance, to take a well-known passage, at Psalm 
ix. 17, we read, in the old version, "The wicked shall 
be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget 
God;" but in the Revised Version we read, "The 
wicked shall return to Sheol, even all the nations that 
forget God." With the popular notion of "hell," we 
would understand the verse as teaching that the wicked 
and disobedient nations should be banished to the 
place of endless punishment; but in the light of the 
Jewish conception of Sheol, the Psalmist is picturing the 
downfall of the nations, the sudden cutting off of the 
people, that neglect to obey Jehovah. The prophecy 
is akin to that other saying, " Bloodthirsty and de- 
ceitful men shall not live out half their days." Again 
at Psalm lv. 15, where David is invoking the judgment 
of God on a friend that had turned traitor, we read in 
the old version, ' ' Let death seize upon them, and let 
them go down quick into hell ; " but in the Revised 
Version we read, ' ' Let death come suddenly upon them, 
let them go down alive into the pit." The Psalmist 
has in mind, not the final retribution beyond death, but 
death itself as it seizes upon the victim unaware, and hur- 
ries him in the pride of health and life to an untimely 
grave. Once more, at Psalm xvi. 10, we have the 
sublime prophecy concerning the Saviour's resurrec- 
tion ; and here the old version reads, " For thou wilt 
not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine 
holy one to see corruption." This passage, as well as 



THE FEAR OF HELL. 221 

the translation of it as quoted by the Apostle Peter, 
in his sermon on the day of Pentecost (Acts ii. 27-31), 
has always been a puzzle to many. It has given them, 
as they have read both prophecy and fulfillment, the 
impression that the soul of Jesus, after his crucifixion, 
went into "hell." Indeed, too, in the so-called Apos- 
tles' Creed, as repeated by the devout churchman from 
his prayer-book, we find the statement : " He descended 
into hell." But the Revised Version no longer puz- 
zles the reader on this point as to Jesus going down 
into "hell." It reads: "For thou wilt not leave my 
soul to Sheol," meaning that God would not abandon 
the soul of His Son to the abode of the dead. 

The study of these changes makes it plain enough 
why the revisers could not leave the word "hell" in 
the passages quoted. Our idea of "hell" is not 
there. It is a different idea ; and, therefore, they 
must give us a different word. 

But the question arises, Why put in this strange 
word Sheol, so new to English eyes and English ears ? 
The reason of the revisers is, that, according to their 
judgment, no one word in English accurately and com- 
pletely represents the Hebrew word. Not "death," 
not the "grave," not the "pit," not the " under- 
world" — none of these terms would, in their opinion, 
do each time for the word Sheol in its wonderfully sol- 
emn and sublime uses in the Word of God. Where 
the word first occurs (Gen. xxxvii. 35), translated 
grave in the old version, Jacob is speaking his great 
sorrow, refusing to be comforted, believing that Joseph 
has been torn into pieces by an evil beast — "Fori 
will go down to the grave for my son mourning." The 
revisers have left grave, and in the margin have spoken 



22 2 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

k 

as follows: " Heb. Sheol, the name of the abode of the 
dead, answering to the Greek Hades, Acts ii. 27." 
We all, therefore, need not be in the dark as to the 
meaning of the word Sheol, a Hebrew word, the name 
of the abode of the dead — a word which no one term 
in English can adequately represent, and which, there- 
fore, the revisers have translated sometimes " grave," 
sometimes "pit," but generally have introduced into 
the English text as a literal Hebrew word. It will be 
only a question of time for us to become used to the 
name. " Jehovah" is Hebrew ; " Hallelujah " is He- 
brew ; ' ' Messiah " is Hebrew. We are used to all these 
words. We can soon become just as familiar with 
Sheol as with these. 

Indeed, the American members of the Revision 
Committee have gone further than the British revisers on 
this point. With characteristic progressiveness, willing 
to accept fully the results of exact scholarship, they ad- 
vocate in their appendix to the Revised Version of the 
Old Testament, that we "substitue 'Sheol' wherever 
it occurs in the Hebrew text, for the rendering the 
'grave,' the 'pit,' and 'hell,' and omit these render- 
ings from the margin." The British revisers have, for 
some cause, been more conservative. They have re- 
tained " hell" fourteen times as found in the passages 
noted above, in Isaiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Jonah and 
Habakkuk, although in every occurrence they put Sheol 
in the margin, that the English reader may not be mis- 
led into the popular notion of "hell," even in the 
verses where it is retained. In these passages the 
word is used in its primitive, its etymological sense of 
a place of darkness or concealment, thus still express- 
ing the idea of the Hebrew Sheol as death, "the 



THE FEAR OF HELL. 223 

grave," " the pit, " "the under-world." For instance, 
at Isa. xiv. 9-15, in the awful curse threatened against 
the king of Babylon, we read : " Hell from beneath is 
moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming : it stirreth 
up the dead for thee. . . . Thy pomp is brought 
down to hell, and the noise of thy viols : the worm is 
under thee, and worms cover thee. . * . . Thou 
shalt be brought down to hell, to the uttermost parts 
of the pit." In a figurative application of this sense 
of Sheol, the revisers have retained " hell " at Jonah ii. 
2, where the truant prophet prays to God: " I called 
by reason of my affliction unto the Lord, and he an- 
swered me ; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou 
heardest my voice." 

The conclusion of the matter as to the doctrine of 
Hell in the Revised Version of the Bible is plain 
enough, so far as the Old Testament is concerned. 
The common idea of Hell is not in the Old Testament at all. 
We may not go to the Old Testament to find a proof- 
text of the orthodox idea of "hell." The Hebrew 
word Sheol, translated in the old version sometimes 
"grave," sometimes "pit," sometimes "hell," never 
covers the idea of a place of complete and final retribu- 
tion. This word, rendered in the Revised Version of 
the Old Testament sometimes "grave," sometimes 
"pit," but oftener simply transliterated, refers to the 
abode of departed spirits, without determining the des- 
tiny of the dead. And in the fourteen places where 
" hell " is still retained, we are told, in the margin, that 
the Hebrew word is Sheol, by which we understand 
that "hell" is there used in its primary sense of a 
state of darkness or concealment — a meaning abun- 
dantly confirmed by the sentiment of the passages. 



224 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

Such is the truth concerning " hell " in the Revised 
Version of the Old Testament. We need not be sur- 
prised at this conclusion. The Old Testament is not 
the complete revelation of God. As a revelation it 
is incomplete, fragmentary, prophetic. Its utterances 
about the future life of the godly, or of the ungodly, 
are generally vague, indefinite, imperfect. Here and 
there is a burst of hope from the lips of seer or saint 
concerning immortality. But its doct rine is not a per- 
fect doctrine as to retribution beyond the grave. We 
must go to the New Testament for the full revelation 
of the truth and will of God. "God having of old- 
time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets, by divers 
portions and in divers manners, hath, at the end of 
these days, spoken unto us in his Son." The vital in- 
terest of this question of the doctrine of "hell" in 
the Revised Version of the Bible centers on the 
New Testament. 

2. Let us, therefore, note this revision of the word in 
the New Testament. 

The word "hell" occurs in King James's version 
of the New Testament twenty-three times, viz. : Matt. 
v. 22, 29, 30; x. 28; xi. 23; xvi. 18; xviii. 9; xxiii. 
15, 33; Mark ix. 43, 45, 47; Luke x. 15 ; xii. 5; xvi. 
23; Acts ii. 27, 31; Jas. iii. 6; II. Pet. ii. 4; Rev. i. 
18; vi. 8; xx. 13, 14. In the Revised Version, in- 
stead of occurring twenty-three times, it occurs only 
thirteen times. In the verses where the changes occur 
they are made, unmistakably, because "hell," as we 
think of the word, not only does not express the 
original Greek, but misleads the English reader. As 
to the changes in these ten places (Matt. xi. 23 ; xvi. 
18; Luke x. 15; xvi. 23; Acts. ii. 27, 31 ; Rev. i. 18; 



THE FEAR OF HELL. 225 

vi. 8 ; xx. 13, 14), we have every time the peculiar 
word Hades, written with a capital H. 

The interest as to these significant changes as to 
"hell " in the Revised Version of the New Testament 
turns on the meaning of Hades. It is a strange word 
to English eyes and ears. What does it mean ? Why 
have these scholars put it ten times into the text as a 
substitute for "hell"? What is its meaning, that its 
place in the Bible, instead of "hell," must do away 
with the common notion of "hell" in the passages 
where the new word occurs ? 

The Greek word Hades corresponds to the Hebrew 
word Sheol. In the Septuagint, which is a Greek trans- 
lation of the Old Testament, Sheol is translated by 
Hades ; and in the original Greek of the New Testa- 
ment, the writers, taking a term that will express the 
idea of Sheol, write Hades. The English reader, as we 
have seen, is left in no doubt as to the meaning of either 
of these new words. Let him turn to Gen. xxxvii. 
35, and there in the margin he reads that Sheol means 
"the abode of the dead, answering to the Greek, 
Hades." For the same reason, the revisers have not 
translated Hades, but simply transliterated it. There 
is no one term in English by which it can be adequately 
represented. It will be only a question of time for us 
to become used to the name. "Christ" is Greek; 
"psalm" and "hymn " are Greek. We are used to 
these words. We can soon become just as familiar with 
Hades as with these. 

The significance of the substitution of Hades for 
" hell " in those ten passages, can, with our knowledge 
of the meaning of Hades, be readily appreciated. For 
instance, at Matt. xvi. 18, Jesus says that the " gates,' ' 



226 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

not of "hell," as we read in the old version, but of 
Hades, shall not prevail against His Church. He means 
that the abode of the dead shall not always hold His 
people behind its bars. This idea agrees with what we 
read at Rev. i. 18, xx. 13. Jesus declares, " I was 
dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have 
the keys of death and of Hades." The prophet of the 
Lord announces, " And the sea gave up the dead which 
were in it ; and death and Hades gave up the dead 
which were in them. " In none of the ten passages would 
"hell " correctly represent the Greek word. The idea 
of "hell" is not in these passages ; and the revisers 
have, therefore, necessarily given us a different word. 

Now comes the vital point of this whole study. 
What about " hell " in the thirteen passages ? Why is 
it retained there? What is the meaning of "hell" in 
these passages ? We have seen that the orthodox idea 
of Hell is not in the Old Testament at all, according 
to the Revised Version. What does the New Testa- 
ment, according to the Revised Version, give on the 
subject ? 

In twelve of these thirteen passages of the Revised 
Version of the New Testament where "hell" is still 
retained (Matt. v. 22, 29, 30; x. 28; xviii. 9; xxiii. 
15, 33; Mark ix. 43, 45, 47; Luke xii. 5 ; James iii. 
6), the original word is not Greek, but Hebrew. But 
it is not the Hebrew Sheol, rendered so often "hell" 
in the old version of the Old Testament, and still so 
translated fourteen times in the Revised Version of the 
Old Testament, although (let us remember) not used, 
in these occurrences, in the orthodox sense of "hell." 
The Hebrew word translated "hell" twelve times in 
the Revised Version of the New Testament is a differ- 



THE FEAR OF HELL. 227 

ent word altogether. It is GeJienna ; so the English 
reader may see in the margin of these twelve passages. 
What is the meaning of Gehenna? What is the mean- 
ing, that the revisers translated it into "hell" twelve 
times, or, to.speak more accurately, leave it, unchanged 
in these twelve occurrences as found in the old version. 

The word Gehenna means literally the Valley of 
Hinnom. This narrow valley, running along the south 
of Jerusalem, had, in Old Testament times, been the 
scene of the idolatrous worship of Moloch, to whom 
the apostate Jews burnt even infants in sacrifice. King 
Josiah, in his work of reformation (II. Ki. xxiii.) dese- 
crated the abominable place ; and in after years it be- 
came the receptacle of the dead bodies of criminals 
and the carcasses of animals, and every other kind of 
filth. Either in allusion to the idolatrous fires of Mo- 
loch, or, as some think, from the consumption of the 
carrion by flames kept steadily going, the Jews of the 
latter time used the word as a symbol of the retribution 
of the wicked. Such was the use of the term when 
Christ appeared. This Hebrew word, Gehenna, Christ 
finds current among the Jews, in the sense of the place 
of the retribution of the wicked ; and He begins to 
use it. 

Now, all the interest of the doctrine of ' ' hell ' ' in the 
Revised Version of God's Word turns on the use made of 
this word Gehenna by the Lord Jesus Christ. 

In the twelve occurrences of Gehenna in the New 
Testament, it is used eleven times by Christ himself, 
once by James in his Epistle. The revisers have let 
"hell" stand as their translation of Gehenna. The 
voice of scholarship is a united voice on the meaning 
of Gehenna, as held by the Jews when Christ appeared. 



228 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

To the Jews it was the awful word by which they ex- 
pressed their conception of the retribution of the wicked. 
In what sense does Jesus use it? Let us note some of 
these passages in the Revised Version, "hell" stand- 
ing for Gehenna. "Whosoever shall say,. Thou fool, 
shall be in danger of the hell of fire" (Matt. v. 22). 
"It is profitable for thee that one of thy members 
should perish, and not thy whole body be cast into hell " 
(Matt. v. 29). "Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers,- 
how shall ye escape the judgment of hell ? " (Matt, xxiii. 
33). What does this sound like? Does it not sound 
solemn and awful ? Hear Jesus Christ again in His use 
of Gehenna, translated "hell." " If thine eye cause 
thee to stumble, cast it out ; it is good for thee to enter 
into the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than 
having two eyes, to be cast into hell ; where their worm 
dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark ix. 47, 
48). It is no longer simply Sheol, the name of the 
abode of the dead, indeterminate as to the retribution 
of the dead. It is Gehenna, a different word. It is 
used by the Lord Jesus Christ. He associates it with 
"fire " and with "judgment." He warns men of the 
danger of the Gehenna of fire, and the danger of the 
judgment of Gehenna — the danger of the "hell" of 
fire, the danger of the judgment of "hell." But the 
strongest passages are yet to be heard from. Listen ! 
"And I say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of 
them which kill the body, and after that have no more 
that they can do. But I will warn you whom ye shall 
fear ; Fear him, which after he hath killed hath authority 
to Cast into hell " (Luke xii. 5). Do we desire the 
awful admonition of this passage — this awful admo- 
nition concerning "hell" — in a still clearer light? 



THE FEAR OF HELL 229 

Listen! "And be not afraid of them which kill the 
body, but are not able to kill the soul ; but rather fear 
him which is able to destroy both soul and body in 
hell" (Matt. x. 28). 

Gehenna, still translated ''hell" in the Revised 
Version, is, according to the teaching of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, the place of retribution for the wicked and dis- 
obedient — the place of "fire," the place of "judgment" 
— the place where not only the body, but also the soul 
may be destroyed. 

The serious question for us now is, Will we hear 
this solemn truth of God's Word? "Hell" is not 
"done away with" in the Revised Version of the 
Bible. It is still there. By the decision of represent- 
ative scholarship, it is still a part of the Word of God. 
It is not taught in the Old Testament ; but it is taught 
in the New Testament. The Revised Version of the 
Bible brings out luminously the impressive fact that it 
is the Lord Jesus Christ chiefly who speaks of Hell. 
James describes the tongue that is " set on fire by hell." 
Peter speaks of the angels whom God "cast down to 
hell." But in eleven of the thirteen occurrences of the 
word in the Revised Version of the New Testament, 
it falls from the lips of Jesus Christ. It is the Son of 
God who teaches us the fear of Hell. The deep lesson 
to us is not only that He teaches it, but how He 
teaches it. 

Have you marked closely the spirit and method of 
Christ's doctrine of Hell ? It is not the staple of His 
teaching, is it ? He does not go about breathing 
threatening and slaughter against the world, does He? 
No, no. He comes with the Gospel of salvation. He 
goes about doing good. He feeds the hungry ; He 



230 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

heals the sick ; He raises the dead ; He preaches good 
tidings to the poor. His presence is light to all those 
that sit in darkness. He invites the weary to come 
unto Him for rest. He receives sinners, and eats with 
them. He rejoices with those that rejoice, and weeps 
with those that weep. He graces the wedding feast, 
and comforts the funeral train. First and foremost, 
steadily, He is the Saviour of the world, and the Friend 
of sinners, and the Light of life, and the Lord of glory. 
It is He, the Son of God and the Son of man, who 
teaches the fear of Hell. But mark His spirit, and let 
us bend and listen, and reverently hear His tone. He 
speaks in no frenzy. There is no glare in His eye. 
No malign passion burn3 in His words. His voice is 
the voice of love : "I say unto you, my friends." He 
speaks plainly on the subject, and His speech is solemn 
warning. But mark again, He does not unroll a pano- 
rama of 'Hell. He does not describe detail after detail 
of penalty and torture. He addresses chiefly, not the 
imagination, but the conscience. He inculcates a 
wholesome fear of Hell. He teaches the truth in 
simple and solemn figure, appealing to the conscience, 
inciting us to be sober and dutiful, so as to escape " the 
judgment of hell." 

It ought to be enough for us that the Son of God 
pronounced dark judgment in doctrine and precept. 
Oh! yes, the light of love shines fullest and widest, and 
words of mercy fall freely in blessing. But there is 
the cloud, and again the warning sound, and again the 
lightning stroke of judgment ; more than once the ex- 
hortation to fear, and to flee the wrath of God. It was 
because men were sinning against the light of their re- 
demption that Jesus utters His terrible judgment. It 



THE FEAR OF HELL. 23 1 

was because Pharisee and Sadducee and scribe loved 
darkness, and hated the Christ of God, that the same 
lips which breathed "Blessed/' pronounced "Woe!" 
"Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! how 
shall ye escape the judgment of hell ? " Prodigal sons 
and women that were sinners^ publicans, harlots, rob- 
bers — over all in whom there was the least sign of re- 
deeming grace, the voice of love declared, " A bruised 
reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he 
not quench." But against self-righteous men, against 
proud men who despised others, against would-be 
teachers of truth who contradicted the truth in their 
practice, against the heartless priest and the cold- 
blooded Levite, especially against men who professed 
religion while they lived a lie, Jesus Christ pronounced 
the judgment of Hell. Not in frenzy, not in malice, 
not in any gloating delight of condemnation, but in 
the prophet's voice of righteous indignation, whose 
tones grew soft again amid regrets and tears — "O 
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killeth the prophets, and 
stoneth them that are sent unto her ! how often would 
I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen 
gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would 
not!" 

The Word of God abides. The doctrine of Hell is 
there. It will come home to our hearts and conscien- 
ces, as we humbly read it or hear it. Why should we 
blind our eyes to it in fatal self-deception ? There is 
not a line of truth in the Scriptures concerning Hell, 
not a word, which has not its signs and proofs already 
in human life. They may be dim, vague, shadowy ; 
but they may be seen, they make themselves felt, in 
many a man's life. Conscience bears witness to Hell. 



232 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

Every day is a judgment day with us, the judgment of 
God in our hearts already, the premonition of the cli- 
max of judgment when we shall be "made manifest 
before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may 
receive the things done in the body, according to what 
he hath done, whether it be good or bad." It is the 
sheerest trifling to debate whether Hell is a place or a 
condition. The great religious poet puts into Satan's 
mouth words true both to the teaching of the Bible 
and to the experience of human life. 

" Me miserable I which way shall I fly 
Infinite wrath and infinite despair ? 
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell." 

So true is it that here and now are the signs and 
foretastes of Hell in men's hearts, and in men's lives. 
Have we not seen its baleful fires already kindled in 
this world ? These dens of vice and crime, the bar- 
room, the gambling hole, the brothel, where men and 
women riot in debauchery, what are they but ante- 
chambers of Hell ? The body that is foul with liquor, 
and burnt out with lust, what brand does it bear upon 
it but the doom of Hell ? The assassin who shoots 
down the president of a nation — the brute who way- 
lays an innocent child — the demon who murders his 
wife with her unborn babe — are not such sins evident, 
going before to judgment, the judgment of Hell? 
When men live wickedly in broad daylight, debauch- 
ing body and soul together, and die cursing God and 
rejecting salvation, what is before them but the eternal 
destruction of body and soul in Hell ? 

Nay, more — not only these evident sins, these 
hardened and impenitent lives in which the fires of Hell 
are glaring, but the secret sins, the sins under cover of 



THE FEAR OF HELL. 



233 



respectability, the vices that hide themselves in social 
graces, the villanies carried on with a show of intellect 
and taste — here, too, is the beginning of the judgment 
of Hell. Do you think that, because you are deceiv- 
ing others, you also deceive God ? Are you sure that 
you are deceiving others ? Are you more than half 
self-deceived ? Do there come no pricks of conscience, 
as men make a show of morality while indulging in 
secret vices ? There never was such guilty living, fair 
before the world but foul within, which did not have 
its stings of heart, the first proofs of the judgment to 
come. The sepulcher may be white, outwardly beau- 
tiful, but inwardly are dead men's bones and all un- 
cleanness. The face may wear a smile, and the man- 
ners may have their grace ; but the soul has begun to 
wither and die. The revelation of the wrath of God 
only declares what has been true all along in these 
hypocritical lives. If you yield to the lust of the flesh 
and the lust of the eyes, whether disgraced openly or 
hiding your shame in social glitter and style, sin goes 
on breeding in the soul all the same ; and sin, says the 
Word of God, "when it is full-grown, bringeth forth 
death." This side of the judgment-seat of Christ, 
this side of the grave, there is not one of us but needs 
to fight the Hell within himself first. Even where we 
yield to the grace of God, and pray, and seek to live 
a manner of life worthy of the Gospel, the conflict, the 
dire conflict, rages within — little hells unmistakably in 
the heart, hells of pride, hells of selfishness, hells of 
hatred and misjudgment of others, even hells of dark 
unbelief of God. We know it, we know it, as we 
have ever humbled ourselves in a deep sense of the 
need of salvation. We have felt and known it some- 



234 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

times, beyond all doubt, that the Word of God is true, 
describing the fact within us, as the tongue was hurried 
to drop its deadly poison, that it was ' ' set on fire by 
hell" ! The victory of a life of faith and righteousness 
over the Hell of fire within us, the victory of Christ 
in redemption day by day, we all need, to save us 
from the eternal destruction of body and soul in Hell. 
O my fellow-men ! will we hear the Lord Jesus 
Christ as he teaches us the judgment of Hell? Will 
you go on disobeying Him, some indifferent, some 
self-satisfied, some openly rebellious and defiant? Will 
you sin on with the flagrant sins of the flesh, or be 
self-deceived in the hidden sins of the heart ? Hear 
the Gospel of your salvation. See the Son of God 
crucified for your redemption. Behold God in Christ, 
reconciling you to Himself, not counting your sins 
against you, loving you, forgiving you, His long-suffer- 
ing still your salvation as He waits, with out-stretched 
hands, and calls all the day long, for you to accept it. 
The grace of God brings you salvation, right home to 
your heart where the Holy Spirit strives with you to 
receive it, and henceforth live soberly, and righteously, 
and godly in this present world, in hope of eternal 
life. Which will you do — will you accept Christ in 
His exceeding mercy, or will you deliberately sin 
against light and love, and refuse to obey His Gospel? 
Hear the end of those that obey not the Gospel of our 
Lord Jesus — "Who shall suffer punishment, even 
eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from 
the glory of his might." 



SERMON XL 

Self-Respect and Salva- 
tion OK YOUNG MEN. 



XI. 

THE SELF-RESPECT AND SALVATION OF 
YOUNG MEN. 

"And as he was going forth into the way, there ran one to him, 
and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that 
I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, Why callest thou 
me good ? none is good save one, even God. Thou knowest the com- 
mandments, Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not 
bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor thy father and mother. And 
he said unto him, Master, all these things have I observed from my 
youth. And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said unto him, 
One thing thou lackest : go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give it to 
the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven ; and come, follow me. 
But his countenance fell at the saying, and he went away sorrowful; 
for he was one that had great possessions." — Mark x. 17-22. 

It is the picture of a young man seeking the pres- 
ence of Jesus. We need not be surprised that he is 
eager to inquire of the Great Teacher. The young 
men are always among the first to receive the impres- 
sions of a great intellectual or moral movement of the 
age, and to drink in the new doctrine of some master 
of thought. We always think of Socrates and the 
Athenian youth together. The live teacher and leader 
is always sure to count among his disciples an army of 
young men, to imbibe his spirit and to advocate his 
views. The attitude of the youthful mind that has 
once been awakened to a sense of its capacities and 
powers, is a fascinating one. The teacher of young 

337 



238 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

men, who appreciates his privilege, will always 
testify to the dignity and joy of his office. Their 
minds are open ; they have eyes to see ; they have 
ears to hear ; their inquiries are eager, their thirst for 
knowledge intense, and their convictions also quickly 
formed and positive, and as often quickly changed; 
while all the time, amid questions and debates, amid 
wonders and advocacies, there is evident an unshaken 
sense of self, and an emphasis of self-hood, and usually 
in such a sincere and manly way, that it may well be 
designated the self-respect of young men. It is a great 
element to count on. A young man that lacks it is a 
weakling. There is in it a divineness of capacity, 
which is there for great good, if it be rightly unfolded. 
It is always admirable in itself. 

This was the kind of young man that sought so 
eagerly the presence of Jesus. He already had public 
office, rulership among the Jews. We can plainly see 
in him all the frankness, the sincerity, the manliness, 
the self-respect of youth. He has the consciousness 
of moral integrity. He has also the aspiration for the 
highest ideal of moral good, eternal life. Is it any 
wonder that he deeply interested the Master ? We 
want to see what Jesus thinks of the self-respect of a 
young man. How will He look on it, what will He 
say of it, how will it be handled under His all-wise 
teaching and guidance? It may be that this self-re- 
spect will need a new light, a new turn, a disclosure of 
a deeper depth of moral need. It may be that Jesus, 
not denying what the young man thinks of himself, 
never once slighting the spirit that the young man 
shows, will yet open his eyes to a lack in his moral 
character that can but sober and humble him, and con- 



THE SALVATION OF YOUNG MEN. 239 

vict him of a want that lies below all his honesty and 
respect for self. It is indeed a beautiful picture of a 
young man, as he knelt there in the way before Jesus 
Christ, his mind and heart aglow with a vision of the 
loftiest ideal that can haunt the dreams of youth. His 
self-respect vividly stirred a peculiar feeling in the Mas- 
ter. We want to see how Jesus looks on the self-re- 
spect of young men, as it also feels the hauntings of 
something better and more complete than itself. 

The young man comes eagerly, running, and kneel- 
ing in profound obeisance before this Rabbi who has 
been startling the multitude with his authoritative style 
of teaching. "Good Master, what shall I do that I 
may inherit eternal life?" It is the hungry question 
of youth, in all sincerity and self-respect. The ques- 
tion — do you not see how at once it has a two-fold 
sound? He seems to say, in one tone, " Is there any- 
thing not yet done by me that keeps me short of eter- 
nal life? " — that much self-confidence. Yet, in another 
tone, he seems to feel a certain lack, he hardly knows 
what. Jesus replies ; and His very first words are 
meant to correct the young man's conception of this 
highest ideal of life. The young man's eyes are in the 
right direction; but he does not see clearly. "What 
shall I do ? " or, " What good thing shall I do ? " and 
these questions addressed to one looked on simply as 
a Jewish Rabbi — "Good Master": no, the young 
ruler has an incomplete conception of goodness. He 
is singling it out, as one thing to be done by itself, or 
as something only that remains to be done, in hope of 
eternal life. He is making of it a fragmentary mat- 
ter, and a kind of object of mere question and answer, 
or of dialogue and debate, and Jesus a mere Rabbi to 



240 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

be interrogated at length about it. Mark the answer 
of Jesus. "Why callest thou me good?" or, "Why 
askest thou me concerning that which is good ? '' 
Jesus is more than a Jewish Rabbi ; but as He is looked 
upon and addressed only thus, He will not receive thus 
such an appellation. The young man's conception of 
goodness must be clarified and heightened. It must 
rise above the appreciation of a good Rabbi, and above 
the notion of some abstract object — "good thing, " or 
"that which is good." Mark the answer of Jesus. 
"One there is who is good"; or, "None is good 
save one, even God." Goodness is no abstraction; it 
is vital and personal. Goodness is no fragment ; it is 
the very perfection of personal character. Goodness 
is God : God is good. 

The answer is altogether characteristic of the teach- 
ing of Jesus. His teaching is a revelation, the rising of 
the sun of truth, in a cloudless sky of doctrine, upon 
the soul of man. It is the duty of man to adjust his 
eye to the sublime vision. But Jesus is patient. He 
will point out the details of the revelation of God. He 
will adapt this or that part of truth to man's ability to 
see. And so He goes on to show how this light of 
goodness, the goodness of God, shines in the com- 
mandments. "Thou knowest the commandments, Do 
not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do 
not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor thy 
father and mother." Yes; how patient and how ten- 
der is the Master with inquiring souls ! We can imag- 
ine that the young ruler was at first almost blinded by 
that glory of truth in the answer of Jesus concerning 
"that which is good." But when his eye is fixed on 
some of the objects of this revelation, the command- 



THE SALVATION OF YOUNG MEN. 24 1 

ments, he can see ; and he thinks that he sees all that 
is contained in the commandments. Again we behold 
the manly spirit, the sincerity, the large self-respect of 
the young man. " Master, all these things have I ob- 
served from my youth." 

Now we are ready for the lessons from this won- 
derful scene. A young man, manly, sincere, self-re- 
spectful, with a knowledge of goodness, and yet 
haunted by the fear that he does not know all that is 
good, staunchly doing the good that he has learnt, but 
still inquiring, " What lack I yet ? " at once conscien- 
tious and uneasy; self - respectful, but not wholly 
confident — this young man in the presence of Jesus 
Christ. How does Jesus regard him ? He stirred a 
peculiar feeling in the Master. Let this be the light 
in which we are to receive a deeper lesson still from 
this wonderful scene. 

"And Jesus looking upon him loved him." The 
eye of the Lord rested gently in a steady gaze ; and 
while He looked, the smile of love beamed from His 
own countenance, and fell softly upon this manly, self- 
respectful young man. Jesus saw something in him to 
love. Indeed, what the young man knew, what the 
young man had done, in one light was no little. He 
had been truthful ; he had been honest; he had been 
chaste ; he had been reverent : all these he had been 
from his youth. The freshness, the mental healthi- 
ness, the moral enthusiasm, the aspirations and ideals 
of young life, had been for him servants in the service 
of goodness. He was there before Jesus a young man 
of good name, pure habits, sincere purposes. Jesus 
loved him for his manly spirit. Jesus loved him for his 
sincerity of purpose. Jesus loved him for his self-re- 



242 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

soect — for the earnest, vigorous, conscientious way in 
which he had applied his knowledge to doing right. 
For this, Jesus loved him, while all the time knowing 
that the young man needed to be waked up to a deeper 
sense of goodness, and to be taught that he was far 
from being perfect. He was a moral young man, 
whom Jesus loved for his self-respect, and yet who 
needed salvation from sin — the salvation that only 
Jesus could bring. 

With all his intelligence and virtues, the young 
ruler did not fully understand himself. Who is there 
of us that has not sometime been surprised by a sud- 
den revelation of our own hearts to ourselves ? Has 
there never come to you such a deepening of self- 
knowledge ? And the more you understand your own 
heart, has there not come a new sense of the evil that 
is present with you ? Whatever be our ideals of good- 
ness, whatever be our reputation among our fellow- 
men, whatever be our thirst for noble living, when we 
have honestly and thoroughly made a self-measure- 
ment, we have found something that holds us back — 
some hindrance, not from the outside, but from the in- 
side, some element of self-hood, that has brought 
shame and pain of conscience. 

Listen to Jesus Christ as He, still in love, answers 
the heart of this self- respectful young man. "One 
thing thou lackest : go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and 
give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in 
heaven: and come, follow me." It was a flash of 
lightning in the young ruler's life — he saw there what 
had never troubled him before. It was an earthquake 
in his soul ; and the fissures opened deep and wide, and 
he beheld the fires of desires that had been heating 



THE SALVATION OF YOUNG MEN. 243 

and inciting the enterprises and h-abits, the tastes and 
judgments, the purposes and hopes of his ambitious 
young life. The shock was too much for him. "But 
his countenance fell at the saying, and he went away 
sorrowful : for he was one that had great posses- 
sions. " Honesty, truthfulness, chastity, reverence — 
these were his virtues; and Jesus looked in love upon 
the self-respect that rejoiced in them. But covetousness 
— that was his sin, down under all his virtues, heating 
and inciting his life. His heart was set on riches. 
He loved them more than he loved the Master ; and 
when the alternative was set before him, Christ or 
money, his countenance fell, he went away sorrowful . 
no longer in self-respect, but in self-shame he clung to 
his possessions. 

Are you ready for the deeper lesson ? I beg you to 
hear, as it is taught by Jesus, who, looking upon a 
self-respectful young man, loved him. Let us never 
forget that look ; but let us ever remember it as a 
smile of gratulation upon the freshness, the elasticity, 
the enthusiasm, the ambitions of the spirit of youth. 
What youth is thus far, Jesus Christ will not deny nor 
ignore: He will acknowledge it, and rejoice over it, 
and congratulate it. But if He goes on to instruct 
youth in its deeper needs, if He reveals the heart of 
youth to itself in unsuspected lights, if He shows all 
youth that, with its self-respect, it still needs salvation, 
if He plainly proves that the self-respect of youth 
must become religious, and be held in humility and in 
obedience to the will of God, shall we not still believe 
that He does all this in love ? 

But immediately we are concerned with the fact that 
some young men, alas ! many young men, have not 



244 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

lived up to the self-respect of the young ruler. There 
are many who could not look Jesus Christ in the face, 
and say sincerely, "All these commandments have I 
observed from my youth." There, first of all, is the 
sad fact that some young men have fallen very far be- 
low their own self-respect. They have lost the respect 
of others ; and their names have become so tarnished 
by notorious sins that the manly spirit droops low in 
their lives, and shame haunts all their waking hours. 
They are idlers ; they are drunkards ; they are gam- 
blers ; they are licentious. Yes; a young man may 
fall this low. The downward course of sin can be run 
very quickly. A young man, if he is persistent in 
immorality, can fill a dishonored grave before he is 
thirty — poverty-stricken through gambling, burnt out 
by alcohol, rotten with licentiousness. Sometimes he 
may not have gone this far down. There are restraints 
that hold him a while from further descents — the neces- 
sity of daily labor, or the dependence of others upon 
him, or the pure atmosphere of a sweet home — until 
his self-respect can brace itself to better living. Some- 
times it is the severity of temptation that leads a young 
man astray. It comes upon him suddenly, and assails 
him with Satanic power ; and while he yields, there 
quickly come remorse and shame, a bitter and sincere 
repentance, the firm resolve of the unconquered will 
to be prudent and brave against another trial. There 
are such workings of a true self-respect with young 
men who have not yet become familiar with the paths 
of sin ; but it is a self-respect that has its pains and 
tears, that feels its wounds, that is conscious of weak- 
ness and blemish, no longer now whole and untar- 
nished. No ; the moral life of that young ruler was a 



THE SALVATION OF YOUNG MEN. 24$ 

remarkable one, an exceptional one in its breadth and 
vigor. To have told the truth, to have been honest, 
to have been reverent, to have been chaste — this was 
unusual moral strength. How many youth have at- 
tained it and maintained it? Has not sometime, per- 
haps more than once, the lie escaped the lips ? Have 
there been no dishonest handlings of trusts ? Has 
there been always the spirit of reverence toward father 
and mother and old age in general ? Are there no 
bitter memories of vices that have been dallied with, 
and that have left a poignant sense of guilt in the 
soul ? 

Here is the first need of many young men — the 
need of salvation from sins about which they have no 
ignorance. You need forgiveness. You need the 
mercy of God. Your conscience tells you so. Your 
self-respect can not deny it. You are young, and yet 
you have sinned. Your sense of shame, the assertion 
and incitements of a self-respect that is not dead, can 
not take away your guilt. There it is in the past of 
your life, to which your conscience bears witness, and 
which will accuse your soul until you humbly accept 
the forgiveness of God in His Son Jesus Christ. O 
young men, you that have sinned knowingly, you that 
can not say with the young ruler, " All these command- 
ments have I observed from my youth," you need the 
redemption that is in Christ. You can have it freely. 
It will bring you peace and joy. It will purify and in- 
vigorate all the capacities and powers of your youth. It 
will enlarge your ideals. It will broaden your sympa- 
thies. It will make you manlier still. It will make you 
wise and strong in the day of trial. It will teach you 
liow much grander holiness is than innocence. It will 



246 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

consecrate you, with all that youth still gives of ardor,, 
quickness, elasticity, to the formation of a spiritual 
character in Christ Jesus. 

There may be some, however, who can be classed 
with the young ruler. They have told the truth ; they 
have been honest ; they have been reverent ; they have 
been chaste. They may say sincerely, "All these com- 
mandments have I observed from my youth : what lack 
I yet?" The look of Jesus is on them, full of love; 
and it is in love that He will go on to show truthful, 
honest, reverent, chaste young men that they, too, have 
deeper moral needs ; that they, too, must be saved from 
sin, and let their vital self-respect be clarified and 
purified, and made thoroughly religious. The look of 
Jesus penetrates the heart, and reveals all its inward 
workings — its hidden springs, its secret motives, its 
subtle seductions. Here is the fullness of self-judgment 
for every man : his heart — what is there ; and what he 
sees there not only in the light of his conscience, but in 
the light of the candle of the Lord. I hear persons 
saying with great self-assurance, ' ' My heart is all right \ 
if I have done wrong, it was an error of the head, not 
of the heart; if I know my heart" — ah, yes, if you 
know your heart ! But the knowledge of the heart is a 
life -time study. No one can understand his own heart 
without profound self-examination. The Bible speaks 
of " hidden faults " — faults away down in the heart ; in 
the depths of one's natures, tendencies to sin, veiled 
motives of action, blind self-excusings — faults hidden 
from the eyes of our fellow-men, hidden from our own 
eyes, open only before God. It is in view of this awful 
danger that we hear one of the Bible prayers — "Search 
me, O God, and know my heart ; try me and know my 



THE SALVATION OF YOUNG MEN. 247 

thoughts, and see if there be any way of wickedness 
in me." 

That was the trouble of the young ruler: he did 
not know his own heart. He needed to be revealed 
to himself. Below his truthfulness, his honesty, his 
reverence, below his chastity, there was in his heart a 
sin against God and against the highest good of the 
soul. That sin was covetousness — a sin that the Bible 
distinctly calls "idolatry." He loved money. Do 
we all fully understand what that sin is ? Does it seem 
strange that a man can tell no lie, and cheat no one, 
and yet worship money as a god ? It is not a strange 
fact. It is occurring every day. But do we appreciate 
how subtle is the sin of covetousness, that it can blind 
the heart of even a truth-telling, honest-dealing, clean- 
bodied man ? It can make such a one feel proudly in- 
dependent of his fellow-men. It can make him feel 
selfishly secure against poverty and want. It can lead 
him to a selfish indulgence in innocent pleasures ; or it 
can allure him to double and treble his capital, with no 
thought nor purpose beyond this piling of dollars up- 
on dollars. It can deceive him with the self-congratu- 
lation that he is charitable and generous, when in com- 
parison with some of the offerings of God's poor, he is 
giving only pittances out of his superfluity. "Covet- 
ousness, the which is idolatry " — so sounds the solemn 
note of God's Word. This idolatry of money is blind- 
ing truthful, honest, chaste men of this generation. 
Sometimes a crisis comes in such a man's life — some 
long sickness, some unforeseen business disaster, some 
wrenching bereavement — and for the first time he is 
revealed to himself: he sees how his heart has been 
set on money above everything else. The shock, in 



248 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

some way, of God's judgment breaks up the man's 
life ; and down below his morality and self-respect he 
sees that he has been blindly worshiping " Mammon.*' 

That hidden sin had a terrible hold upon the young 
ruler's life. Jesus saw that ; and Jesus, therefore, was 
severely plain and purposely severe in the alternative 
that He set before the young man's choice. Treasure 
on earth, or treasure in Heaven — he must choose one 
or the other. Jesus saw that his trust in riches was so 
supreme that nothing short of a complete forsaking 
them could release his soul to the pursuit of a spiritual 
life. The result showed how covetous the young man 
was. One moment bright, happy, with eager inquiry 
concerning goodness, congratulated by Jesus on his 
morality and self-respect ; the next moment, with 
spiritual life indeed offered to him, companionship with 
Jesus, training under Jesus, the highest good of his 
own soul in doing untold good to others, then the 
lightning of self-revelation flashed, the shock of self- 
hood was painfully felt, the hidden sin of his heart was 
seen — his countenance fell, and he went sorrowfully 
away, " for he was one that had great possessions." 

Let young men think on all this. It is a luminous 
lesson how that, under the morality and self-respect of 
youth, there may be hidden sins. A man may be 
truthful, and yet narrowly proud ; honest, and yet 
supremely selfish ; chaste, and yet cold and unsympa- 
thetic. Test yourselves in the light of the look and 
teaching of Jesus Christ. If the spirit of your youth 
has no tarnish of lie, nor theft, nor sensuality, there is 
place for the gratulation of self-respect. Jesus's look 
of love allows all that. He would not diminish your 
self-respect one whit. But let His look of love, and 



THE SALVATION OF YOUNG MEN. 249 

His words of love, now go down into your heart, and 
search that deeper region of life. What is there ? Be 
honest and truthful with yourself in this thorough 
self-examination. Do you find any self-sufficient pride 
there? Do you feel any flatterings of vanity? Do 
you detect any feelings of envy or jealousy ? Do you 
harbor any malice toward some cutting critic of your 
person or manner ? Have you never felt harsh nor un- 
kind toward some unwitting mistake of a friend ? 
Have you never been troubled by the stir of an evil 
passion ? If you have never slandered your fellow- 
men, have you never misjudged them nor cherished 
ungrounded dislikes for them ? If you have always 
been chaste in body, have you always been chaste in 
thought and imagination ? Is your heart set on any- 
thing of this world — money, fame, pleasure, friend- 
ship — that you would rather have to enjoy than the will 
of God, if it pointed in a different direction ? If Jesus 
Christ were to test you to-night as regards some hidden 
desire or affection, saying, "Choose me or that," 
what would be your choice ? Would your countenance 
fall, and would you go sorrowfully away ? 

Young men, test yourselves by these questions. 
See just where you stand as regards the condition of 
your souls. If your youth has been already stained 
by sins of the flesh, if your conscience must honestly 
declare, " No ; I have not observed all these command- 
ments," do you not feel your need of cleansing? And 
if you measure your life thus far right along with the 
life of that young ruler, still are there not sins of the 
heart that you begin plainly to perceive ? Here is 
what you all need — the redemption that is offered in 
the Gospel of Jesus Christ ; and that means not only 



25O EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

redemption from sin, but redemption unto holiness : 
yes ; it means not only the forgiveness of past sins, 
but it means necessarily the beginning of a religious 
character. This is the hope and joy of all young life 
— that it be sincerely and beautifully religious. It is 
the ideal held up in the Word of God. " Rejoice, O 
young man, in thy youth " — I ask you, is not this a 
thrilling congratulation, from the very heart of God ? 
But there is another note to be heard. " Remember 
also thy Creator in the days of thy youth." These 
two together — for a young man to rejoice in his youth, 
with its vigor of body, its eagerness of mind, its elasticity 
of spirit, its enthusiasms, its ambitions, its ideals, its 
capacities, its advantages, its opportunities ; and then 
all the time to hold and use these in obedience to God. 
Let us never forget that look of Jesus's love upon the 
self-respect of a young man. It meant a great deal ; 
and let us make of it all that Jesus meant. Let it 
thrill your hearts to-night ; and then listen, I beg you, 
listen also to the commandment of Jesus that this 
fresh, glad, active, hopeful spirit of youth be enlight- 
ened, and purified from all sin, and turned to a pow- 
erful influence in religious character. 



SERMON XII. 

Possession and Practice 
ok righteousness. 



XII. 

THE POSSESSION AND PRACTICE OF RIGHT- 
EOUSNESS. 

"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for 
they shall be filled." — Matt. v. 6. 

" He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous." 
— I.John in. 7. 

Christ not only brings help to all of our wants, but 
He first gives to us the true expression of our wants. 
Under the impulse of the Gospel the dumb heart be- 
comes articulate with an intelligent cry. The want 
may still be unsatisfied, but man sees the satisfaction, 
and longs for it knowingly. His hunger is painful, his 
thirst intense ; but he hungers and thirsts after right- 
eousness. Here is the secret of the first power of Christ 
on man. It is true of all of us that we are first revealed 
to ourselves by the companionable touch of some 
stronger nature. In some happy hour the word is 
spoken, or a deed is seen, or an influence flows out, 
and we are revealed to ourselves in the valuable self- 
knowledge of what we really need. Then the hunger 
begins, and the thirst — painful hunger and intense 
thirst ; but the bread and the water are ready, and we 
have only to eat and drink in order to live. Jesus 
Christ wakes men up to understand what they are, 
and to see what they may be, and awakens them by 

the touch of His own nature on theirs. In all the 

(253) 



254 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

distinctive precepts of that sermon on the mountain, 
in all luminous contrasts between the old-time doctrine 
and the new, in all authoritative sanctions and admon- 
itions, there was the subtle power of a life pervading 
the listening multitude, and stirring sleeping con- 
sciences, and unlocking fettered hearts. In such vital- 
ity lay the special power of the discourse — a power 
not so much of originality of truth, as of original di- 
rection and application of truth, not so much of a new 
doctrine, as a new spirit of doctrine, not so much of 
unheard-of precepts, as of an impressive authority in 
commanding. No wonder the " Beatitudes" have 
such a volume of meaning. Self-revelation, vitality, 
authority, are all wrapt up in them, and give them 
their power of blessing to men. The life that was in 
the speaker was the secret of the power of His speech. 
All this we must keep in mind, if we wish to under- 
stand every precept and every promise of Jesus Christ. 
The blessing of those who "hunger and thirst after 
righteousness," its secret, too, is the secret of self- 
revelation, of abundant vitality, and supreme au* 
thority. 

Righteousness ! It is one of the master- words of 
the Bible. Its occurrences and uses are immensely 
varied. Sometimes it has a plain, every-day ring of 
duty about it, and you think that you can easily catch 
all its signification ; and then again it swells with the 
harmonies of some prophetic strain or apocalyptic 
song, of which the human mind stands in awe. You 
now look upon it in the simple light of some homely 
precept, when, behold! it loses itself in the "finer 
light in light" of an exceeding great promise. A cer- 
tain passage seems to give it the clear outline of a 



POSSESSION AND PRACTICE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 2$ 5 

-worldly morality, and then another verse swallows it in 
the depths of mystery. It is one of the master-words 
of the Bible because it is one of the deepest needs, 
one of the deepest experiences of life. The Bible has 
to talk about it in this manifold way because it has just 
such a history in the lives of men. The verbal contra- 
dictions must appear as the Word of God faithfully 
depicts its character and course in the redemption and 
development of humanity. We hear the Master warn- 
ing His disciples, " Except your righteousness shall ex- 
ceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, 
ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven ; " 
and then in variant language one of His Apostles utters 
the disclaimer, "not having a righteousness of mine 
own." The same Apostle looks for our salvation "not 
by works done in righteousness, which we did our- 
selves ; " while the Master looking for the doing of 
righteousness, warns us as to the motive, ' ' Take heed 
that ye do not your righteousness before men to be 
seen of them." 

The word thus has a deep interest of thought and 
life. All these variant uses, its specially manifold 
significance with Paul, are not just so much verbal fenc- 
ing nor dialectical refining. No ; the word represents 
a deep and complex experience of human nature, and 
of human nature as handled by the purposes and power 
of Christ's redemption. Language, even the language 
of inspiration, may fail to set forth in logical forms all 
this deep experience of your life ; but the language 
of the New Testament, especially of Paul's Epistles, 
is there in the attempt to express the meaning ; and it 
is intellectual cowardice to ignore the doctrine, or intel- 
lectual caprice to appropriate only part of it to tally 



256 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

with our partisan views. Sometimes you hear an 
humble-hearted disciple, in sincere fervor, bemoaning 
his sins, and disowning any righteousness of his own, 
sincerely and fervently claiming Christ for his right- 
eousness. More than once has a man of high culture 
heard such a prayer, and the thought is an offense to 
him, and he feels rather like exhorting his fellow-man 
to "follow after righteousness." It is a significant 
lesson that in one religious gathering such a prayer is 
frequently heard, and such praying far oftener than 
such exhortation ; while in another, such exhortation 
is the exclusive tone, and such a prayer is never uttered. 
There is a caricature in one place, a defect in the 
other. There is a unity of truth lying back of both 
the prayer and the exhortation. But we must take 
time this morning, if we wish to know the teaching of 
God's Word concerning righteousness. The doctrine 
is there. It may lie there in complicated forms, need- 
ing discrimination, a stumbling-block to zealots, and 
foolishness to wiseacres. 

But indeed it is a truth of our every experience, a 
true description of what each one of us is undergoing 
at some stage, if we hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness. You hunger and thirst, and Christ fills you ; you 
are blessed beyond doubt. About all this sweet, real 
experience the Bible has so much to say, because it 
means so much. Let us search the Scriptures thereon, 
and let us know what they teach concerning righteous- 
ness in possession and practice. To have righteous- 
ness, not fictitiously, but really, so that it satisfies all 
the hunger of our hearts; and to do right, as God 
would have us practice it, and as our fellow-men can 
see it and judge it — this is our eager study to-day. 



POSSESSION AND PRACTICE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 257 

Let us begin with the fullest passage of the New 
Testament. We find it in Paul's Epistle to the Philip- 
pians — a passage describing a vital experience ; a de- 
scription involving a nice discrimination of words, but 
warm throughout with the blood of a throbbing life. 
The contrast is again up with the Apostle between Ju- 
daism and Christianity. He looks on Christians as 
the true circumcision, "who worship by the Spirit 
of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no con- 
fidence in the flesh." This {i confidence in the flesh " 
— here is the first discriminative touch. Paul could 
have claimed such a right. He looks back, and sees 
that all the rights and honors of Judaism were his pre- 
eminently. Not only was he " circumcised the eighth 
day," but "of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Ben- 
jamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. " In lineage and 
blood his boast was high. When it came to his standing 
in "the law," he was pronouncedly a Pharisee — not 
the Pharisee of extortion and hypocrisy whom Christ 
denounced, but Joseph-like, Nicodemus-like, like his 
master Gamaliel. Nay, "as touching the righteous- 
ness which is in the law found blameless.'' He means 
the righteousness of a restricted kind. His fasts, his 
washings, his prayers, his tithes, his cleanness of 
hands and name, his zeal for conscience' sake — on these 
he could have counted as undisputed gains. But now 
for some reason he flings them all away. He is con- 
tent to lose them in order to gain Christ. He stops at 
no limitations. "Yea, verily, and I count all things to 
be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ 
Jesus my Lord : for whom I suffered the loss of all 
things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain 
Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteous- 



258 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

ness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but 
that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness 
which is of God by faith. " 

What does it mean, this contrast between a right- 
eousness one's own and a righteousness "which is 
through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God 
by faith?" Is it simply the strained language of a 
Jewish dialectician ? Is Paul indulging unconsciously in 
a rabbinical habit of mind ? Is the apt pupil of Gam- 
aliel fettering the abundant vitality of tha» Gospel in a 
logical form ? Is there any deep experience back of 
these verbal contrasts to justify them, to more than 
justify them, as they can but hint at the deep underly- 
ing reality ? 

Before you begin to study the opinions and expla- 
nations of theological schools on the Pauline idea of 
righteousness, the best way to understand it is to be- 
gin right with yourself, to make a study of yourself 
with all your moral needs. That you can do, if you are 
thoroughly honest. And now what do you find ? Let 
the answers be given just as far as possible in the lan- 
guage of every-day life, as far as possible without the 
phraseology of any particular philosophy, agnostic, ec- 
lectic, or transcendental. You have the honest desire 
to be good and to do right. We need not stop to 
study the origin nor the meaning of such a desire. 
You have it strong enough to be also with you an un- 
feigned purpose. All that is meant by hating the lie 
and loving the truth ; keeping one's self pure ; dealing 
honestly with one's fellow-man ; helping the needy as 
one can ; craving the knowledge that one has shirked 
no duty and left undone nothing that ought to be done 
— a good conscience, an unsullied character, a praise- 



POSSESSION AND PRACTICE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 259 

worthy name — all this, we will say, is your strong de- 
sire and unfeigned purpose. Oh ! it is so much for 
one to have such a desire and purpose. A great many 
have it not — the multitude whose " sins are evident, 
going before unto judgment. " Many others hardly make 
a purpose of their desire to be good ; even their desire 
is weak and fitful. But let us suppose (the supposi- 
tion is not improbable) that there are some with whom 
right-doing is a passion, who make it a study and drive 
hard at it in practice, and that you are one of these. 
You have your high ideal of goodness, and towards it 
you are striving. It has grown upon you from the 
sweet companionships of the household ; from the 
warm fellowship of living friends ; from the sad, far-off 
memories of your dead ; from the records of great 
names in history. Nay, there is one Name of history 
which you reverence and love. You may be unable to 
repeat the Church's creed concerning that Name ; but 
as you turn the pages that tell of that life, you can but 
confess it altogether lovely, the one perfect Example 
of goodness of which men can not reasonably doubt. 
There are truth, and purity, and kindness, and beauty, 
no longer in mere didactic deliverances, but in 
blood and breath and look and touch, life in moral 
perfection. 

Now remember I am supposing that such an ideal is 
a passion with you, an active desire and purpose which 
is more to you than mother or father or wife or houses 
or lands or fame. What comes of it ? Why, with all 
your striving, you fail to attain it. You come very far 
short of it. It rises to infinite heights above you, and 
out of your depths of failure you look to it and long 
for it in vain. Why? For the plainest reason in the 



260 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

world. It is because something is holding you back. 
There is no room for skepticism here. The trouble is 
with you. Give it what name you please, wickedness, 
depravity, sin ; make what philosophy of it you may — 
there is something in you that holds you back. And 
then comes a bitterness of feeling, a sense of wretch- 
edness, pain and suffering within. Such is the experi- 
ence of every man with his ideals and hard strivings 
and inevitable failures. So true is that last part of the 
seventh chapter of Romans. It comes home to all of 
us as we endeavor by ourselves to attain unto righteous- 
ness. "To will is present with me, but to do that 
which is good is not.*' This is the sad, solemn fact of 
the result of our high purposes of goodness. And will 
you hear Paul's explanation of the failure? "I find 
then the law, that, to me who would do good, evil is 
present." That is what the hindrance is called. And 
here is the whole matter in a nutshell : " For I delight 
in the law of God after the inward man : but I see a 
different law in my members, warring against the law 
of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the 
law of sin which is in my members." The conclusion 
is inevitable. In sight of the ideal of goodness, will- 
ing that which is right, striving for moral completeness 
in ourselves, we miss it always ; and such self-knowl- 
edge, if neither the world nor business nor pleasure 
nor pride hides us from it, will cause the bitter cry, 
" O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me out 
of the body of this death ? " 

If this be the experience of every such purposeful 
man, it is then no dry dogmatic teaching that we find 
on the subject in the third chapter of Romans. There 
is simply the record of the undeniable fact — " all have 



POSSESSION AND PRACTICE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 26 1 

sinned, and fall short of the glory of God." The 
speaking of the law of God is but a clearer and stronger 
enforcement of the conscience of man. Man's ideal, 
looked at by itself, is but his best conception of this 
perfect law which is the habitant of God's throne ; and 
his ideal rebukes him for falling so short. Certainly 
"every mouth is stopped." Certainly " all the world " 
is "brought under the judgment of God." Certainly 
"by works of law shall no flesh be justified in his 
sight." Paul's own righteousness did not satisfy him. 
Neither will your own righteousness satisfy you. What 
that is, the difference between it and other righteous- 
ness, why each, being different, so gets its character- 
ization, will appear before I have done. 

Let us, therefore go down into a deeper depth of 
the subject. Here is a large and luminous Scripture. 
" But now apart from the law, a righteousness of God 
hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and 
the prophets; even the righteousness of God through 
faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe ; for 
there is no distinction ; for all have sinned, and fall 
short of the glory of God ; being justified freely by 
his grace through the redemption that is in Christ 
Jesus : whom God set forth to be a propitiation, 
through faith, by his blood, to show his righteousness, 
because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, 
in the forbearance of God ; for the showing, I say, of 
his righteousness at this present season : that he might 
himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith 
in Jesus. " 

We have not time, indeed, to-day for all that is in 
this meaty passage. But we can get out of it enough 
food to satisfy certain strong cravings of the mind. 



262 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

" The righteousness of God " — that is the first thought. 
A righteousness infinite with His being, strong with 
His almightiness, perfect with His character, has its 
revelation. Concerning it the law teaches. Of it the 
prophets sing. But there is need of such a manifesta- 
tion profounder than the law taught, sublimer than the 
prophets sang. It is revealed in the Incarnation and 
Sacrifice of His Son. In the Gospel is the righteous- 
ness of God now revealed. But the Gospel speaks of 
facts that were a stumbling-block to some, foolishness 
to others. It speaks of service, and sacrifice, and suf- 
fering, and death. Here is where the human mind has 
wondered most, and pondered longest, and where the 
schools of theology have made a battle-field of theories 
and shibboleths. Why that incarnation and death 
to reveal that righteousness ? What is the secret 
of the power of that righteousness in such an obe- 
dience ' ' even unto death, yea, the death of the 
cross," to ease man of sin and to move him to a better 
life? No theory has fathomed its depths. The " com- 
mercial " theory of Christ's reconciliation is well-nigh 
forgotten in its frigid and mechanical formulae. The 
" governmental " theory is fast losing its hold as the 
modern mind is fast learning to undo the habit of judg- 
ing the ways of God by the ways, the artificial ways, 
of man. The " moral-influence " theory, attractive, 
suggestive, humane, we are all beginning to feel does 
not touch bottom. "The sins done aforetime" — that 
is, before Christ came — God's passing over these for- 
bearingly — His setting forth His Son as a "propitia- 
tion" or "mercy-seat," to "show his righteousness" 
for such forbearance — here verily is an infinite depth of 
the righteousness of God revealed in the obedience 



POSSESSION AND PRACTICE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 263 

and death of the Son of His love. Why should it be 
thought strange that no school of theology, not even 
the sound words of the Bible itself, have measured the 
wealth of light and love here so gloriously and gra- 
ciously manifested ? 

And this backward look of the death of Christ has 
just as much significance M at this present season," in 
the case of every one, indeed, who seeks Christ for 
salvation from sin. It is just an awful, undeniable fact 
in the lives of each one of us — this disturbance of 
heart because of a guilty past. Perhaps our fore- 
fathers overdid the matter in preaching the relief from 
this trouble as the whole of the forgiveness of sins, to 
the neglect of urging a necessary betterment of life. 
But surely the language of the New Testament has no 
meaning, if therein is not preached, " beginning at Je- 
rusalem," the "remission of sins " in the name of 
Jesus Christ, if the sweetness of fellowship with Him, 
the "redemption" that is in Him, has not its first 
warmth of synonym in the " forgiveness of our sins," 
as meaning necessarily the taking away of our past 
sins in the sacrifice and suffering of God's Son. The 
tendency now is away from this first of the two great 
uppermost thoughts of the New Testament. But this 
thought, this doctrine, this promise makes itself bless- 
edly felt with every one who will receive it in the hu- 
mility of obedience to Christ. Somehow, yes, somehow, 
this righteousness of God, taught in the law, sung of 
by the prophets, but now revealed in the death of His 
Son, as it flings its influence over the " sins done afore- 
time, " and illumines the Godward side of the revela- 
tion, whose light is yet too strong for man — the right- 
eousness of God, shining in your heart and my heart 



264 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

as we turn to it by faith, gives us peace of conscience 
from sins past; and in such shining God is "just" or 
"righteous," and " the justifier of him," or "accounts 
him righteous," really, not fictitiously righteous, " that 
hath faith in Jesus." 

Again let us go to the Book of the Acts, and mark 
how the great salvation of the Gospel is livingly a sal- 
vation of men in righteousness — a righteousness not 
their own, but the righteousness of God in Christ, 
"the righteousness which is of God upon faith." In 
and out among the inhabitants of the earth, to the 
pressing crowd and to the wayfaring pilgrim, to highly 
moral men and to blackened sinners, in the quietness 
of a personal chat, in the storm of hissing enemies, to 
hungry hearts and to scoffing heads, the Gospel is 
preached — the free, living Gospel wherein, without for- 
mula, without definition, without a rigid and frigid sys- 
tem, "the righteousness of God is revealed from faith 
unto faith. " It met the hunger and thirst of mankind. 
They were filled with the first blessedness of salvation 
— the deliverance, purely through mercy, without any- 
thing to commend them, entirely by favor, from the 
sins of the past. The mercy superabundant — " to the 
whole creation ; " the promise undeniably clear — "he 
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" — "re- 
pent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name 
of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins v — no 
wonder the Gospel propelled its influence far and wide 
over that Pagan world. It was the gift of life through 
Jesus Christ — abundant, superabounding life — to a 
world whose moral vitality had gone down to zero. 
The regeneration of mankind had begun. Because 
man is what he is in the unity of his life, what Jesus 



POSSESSION AND PRACTICE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 265 

did for him must first affect what was behind. That 
influence of the Gospel on the past, necessarily in- 
cluded and preached in the sound words " forgiveness," 
"remission," ' 'justification," made itself felt because 
man needed the influence. 

Oh ! how richly and variedly the Christian may 
speak of this life of righteousness, not his own, but 
Christ's, become his possession in a real experience of 
heart and character ! A blessing has come to us which 
we all confess that we sorely need, need most of all 
blessings. It came without any search on our part, 
without any thought of ours ; without any provision or 
prevision of our own. It is the gift, the mercy, the 
favor, the love of God, making up for all our loss, sup- 
plying all our lack, satisfying all our desires. Deny 
this deep, awful need of man, and you simply butt 
your .head against a stern fact of life. Try to meet it 
otherwise than by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and men 
will at last reject your chaff. The fact — the fact of 
man's moral need, the fact of the Gospel's meeting it 
— is the most undeniable fact of history. Till a better 
explanation of it comes, as the mind seeks instinctively 
for phrases, formulae, verbal settings, let us turn to the 
Sacred Writings, and repeat "the pattern of sound 
words," no longer dry and cold and barren, but warm 
and vital and meaningful to him who believes that in 
the end life and thought are one, worthy indeed of the 
power and passion of music as it floats over a great 
congregation in some cathedral gloom, or becomes 
simply melodious in one believer's heart — " not for our 
righteousness, but for thy great mercies" — "who of 
God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and 
sanctification, and redemption" — "him who knew no 



266 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might be. 
come the righteousness of God in him" — "not by 
works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, 
but according to his mercy he saved us " — " not hav- 
ing a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of 
the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, 
the righteousness which is of God by faith" — "we 
through the Spirit by faith wait for the hope of right- 
eousness." Such language is true to life, at one with 
our needs, at one with their supply, the illumination of 
the height and length and breadth and depth of that 
magnificat of the believer's heart, as he views his re- 
demption, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our 
Lord!" 

This is the beginning of the fulfillment of the 
promise to hungry and thirsting souls. I do not be- 
lieve that any other beginning will ever satisfy you, if 
you are so hungry. On the contrary, with many who 
gaze towards the ideal of righteousness and are ever 
striving towards it, I see dissatisfaction and wonder- 
ment and sadness. The eyes of intelligence are often 
nowadays turned upon Jesus Christ, and in them one 
can read the light of no little appreciation of what He 
did and said, but it does not soften into a look of peace 
and content. We shall not hear the tender voice of 
gratitude repeating with Simeon, "Mine eyes have 
seen thy salvation." All else in the Nazarene that 
makes for the perfect life is seen and admired — the 
purity, the mildness, the sweet reasonableness, the 
self-sacrificingness ; but at the rest there is doubt and 
distrust. The land-marks of Bethlehem — the Incarna- 
tion ; of Calvary — the Reconciliation ; of Pentecost — 
the authoritative Evangel — are openly disbelieved or 



POSSESSION AND PRACTICE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 267 

silently ignored. And therefore, when hungry hearts 
seek for righteousness, the sight of the beauty of 
Christ's character and manner does not satisfy the 
hunger ; and so with all such professions of admi- 
ration and persuasive commendation, with all who 
admire and gaze intently at the historic ideal, there is 
still unrest and failing of heart, and painful askance of 
thought, and at last the inevitable drift to a sort of 
melancholic carelessness and mere aesthetic ease. 

No ; Christ's promise of righteousness to hungry 
hearts must begin with our first want, the forgiveness 
of past sins, the remission of present sins, the '? free 
gift," the "gift of the grace of the one man;" we 
must first "receive the abundance of grace and of the 
gift of righteousness. " This first uppermost thought 
of the Gospel I preach to you again this morning, 
faithfully and plainly. "Christ and Him crucified, " 
the old Pauline standard — here He is, openly set 
forth before you. I preach Him in His life and death, 
in His perfect obedience, to meet the wants of your 
soul. Those wants are there, be sure ; and they are 
but intensified when they fasten on Christ, but stop 
short of the cross to which He was nailed for our be- 
hoof. Your culture will only make you all the sadder 
and more despairful, if it refuses the simple mercy of 
God to take away your sins in the sacrifice of the Son 
of His love. 

Now come the positive lessons of righteousness in 
practice. There is no break nor leap here in the Word 
of truth. This gift of righteousness God means to be 
to every man the mightiest obligation to a life of 
righteousness. The critical mind may study, classify, 
discriminate the uses of this master-word, whether it 



268 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

refers to the first simple touch of God's healing a 
sinful heart, or to the final fruits that enrich a be- 
liever's life. But the Gospel itself uses the word freely, 
fluently, livingly, always in contact with life at some 
point. It never once lets go its idea of influencing 
man for certain moral good. It distinctively teaches 
that the very remission of our sins involves a newness 
of living and doing. The idea of the freeness of this 
salvation had already begun to be perverted in Paul's 
day. "If grace overflows sin," so the loose notion 
was floating in some minds, "let us sin on, that grace 
may abound more and more exceedingly." The very 
fact of such a perverse notion shows the liability of the 
doctrine to such a perversion. We are saved accord- 
ing to mercy, without any reference to moral measure- 
ments of our own. But the New Testament teaches 
that, while the gift of righteousness is just so free, its 
true tendency must be to make us better in life. "Shall 
we continue in sin that grace may abound ? God 
forbid." That is Paul's solemn negation. And then, 
speaking of the great historic act, our obedience in 
baptism, where the salvation of the penitent believer 
is beautifully and really represented, out of that obe- 
dience and with that blessing the Apostle finds a moral 
newness of life necessarily following. " Or are ye ig- 
norant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus 
were baptized into his death. We were buried there- 
fore with him through baptism into death, that like as 
Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of 
the Father, so we also might walk in newness of 
life." 

There is no covert here for either ignorance or hy- 
pocrisy. The might of moral obligation loses none of its 



POSSESSION AND PRACTICE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 269 

intensity in the mercifulness of the Gospel. The mercy 
of the Gospel but reenforces its intensity. No sinner 
has felt aright the healing hand of the Saviour, who 
does not arise from the waters of baptism with regnant 
motives to lead a new life. So vital is this double idea 
of the righteousness of God, its power to cleanse and its 
purpose to bitter men's lives, its revelation of the jus- 
tice of God's ways and of an ideal for man's pursuit, 
its mercy in setting men right towards a wrong past, 
and setting them onward to a holy future, that the New 
Testament fairly revels in the luxuriance of its teach- 
ing, its precepts, its pictures, its promises of this per- 
vasive thought. It simply asks of us to hold this va- 
riant doctrine, this manifold usage, in the unity of an 
intelligent grasp. And so holding it we may see 
its vast meaning unfold, and cover the wide range of 
life and duty. 

Mark its urgent " therefore," filled with all the 
porver and purpose of redemption — "let not sin, there- 
fore, reign in your mortal body ! " Listen to its im- 
mense motive of gratitude taught former hardened 
sinners, the thief, the drunkard, the libertine — "such 
were some of you ; but ye were washed, but ye were 
sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God." See 
the far-sighted moral design of the very sacrificial 
death of Jesus Christ — "who his own self bare our 
sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died 
unto sin, might live unto righteousness." Do you 
need insistence of precept as regards your passions ? 
"Flee youthful lusts ; but follow after righteousness ! " 
Do you want all moral defense against the inroads of 
the world ? "By the armor of righteousness on the 



27O EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

right hand and on the left." Do you wish a live, loud 
word about your companionships ? " What fellowship 
have righteousness and iniquity? " Would you have 
a decisive test of your motives in your good works ? 
" Take heed that ye do not your righteousness before 
men, to be seen of them." Do you want some first 
gleam of light, some first soft touch of easing, as you 
suffer the pangs of a long, sharp discipline, where even 
human love fails, and you begin your walk under the 
heavy shadows? "All chastening seemeth for the 
present to be not joyous, but grievous ; yet afterward 
it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them that have been 
exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness." 
Do you in these times of sad carelessness or morbid 
questionings about death and a hereafter, long for a 
luminous hope that flings its light towards the low dark 
verge of life, through the grave, over the land beyond? 
"Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of 
righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge shall, 
give me at that day." 

Righteousness! Do you hunger for it? Do 
you feel your need of it ? Deep down in your heart, 
do you want to be right and do right? Are you 
tired of sinning, and sorry for your sins, and longing 
to be saved from all sin ? Here is righteousness — 
the righteousness of God — revealed in the life and 
sacrifice of the Son of His love, a redemption from 
sin for all of God's creatures, a righteousness for you 
and me to possess really in heart, and to practice 
daily in duty. It is God's own gift for our peace, 
our strength, our hope evermore. It is ours in the 
self-renouncements of our faith. It is ours in the 
humble, prayerful energies of our obedience. It is- 



POSSESSION AND PRACTICE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 27 1 

ours, in the grace of God, in the Cross of Christ, for 
self-denying possession, for self-denying practice, 
which lifts its banner, and exultantly sings, "The 
Lord our righteousness ! " 



SERMON XIII. 

Crises ok decision in 
Conversion. 



XIII. 
CRISES OF DECISION IN CONVERSION. 

" And with many other words he testified, and exhorted them, say- 
sng, Save yourselves from this crooked generation." — Acts ii. 40. 

Peter had preached the Gospel. The sword of the 
Spirit had pierced the heart of the vast audience as the 
heart of one man. The penitent cry had rent the air, 
1 ' Brethren, what shall we do ? " Peter had sounded the 
note of duty, and had revealed the promise of salva- 
tion — " Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you 
in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your 
sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." 
He had declared the world-wide light and love of the 
promise — ' ' For to you is the promise, and to your 
children, and to all that are afar ofT, even as many as 
the Lord our God shall call unto him." 

But Peter was not through with his sermon. " With 
many other words he testified, and exhorted them, 
saying, Save yourselves from this crooked generation." 
Although he beheld hundreds and hundreds, a surging 
crowd, convicted of sin ; although he decisively de- 
clared the Way of salvation, — still he preached on; 
with many other words he went on testifying ; he went 
on exhorting them to be saved. Can we doubt what 
those "many other words" were, words of testimony 
and words of exhortation ? He must have quoted 
more prophecies ; he must have appealed to more facts. 



2j6 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

Those Jews knew what had been written aforetime of 
the Messiah ; they knew what had been done by Jesus 
of Nazareth in their midst, the mighty works and 
wonders and signs. The Apostle, inspired, impelled, 
borne along by the Spirit, poured out testimony after 
testimony, and poured down exhortation after exhor- 
tation, upon the hearts and consciences of convicted, 
inquiring sinners who had been enlightened concerning 
salvation by a crucified and risen Saviour. 

It was necessary. It was no superfluous work. 
There was a crisis in the lives of men. The acceptable 
year of the Lord had begun with them. The day of 
salvation had dawned upon them. They saw it ; they 
knew it. But now what would come of all this? 
Peter necessarily went on testifying and exhorting. 
Men may be convinced and convicted, deeply con- 
victed, of sin, and yet not be saved. There may come 
a terrible conflict at the last whether they will give up 
anything and everything for Christ. A thousand ex- 
cuses, a thousand allurements, will come pressing and 
playing upon their hearts, to hold them back from 
obeying the Gospel. There were many Jews in that 
huge mass who were undergoing just that tremendous 
trial, while they now tremblingly believed that Jesus 
of Nazareth whom they had wickedly crucified, God 
had raised from the dead, and exalted to be both Lord 
and Christ. As Peter went on testifying and exhort- 
ing, they felt it was a crisis of decision. They had to 
fight with their personal pride. They felt the awful 
shame of their nation's guilt. They knew that they 
would be deciding for to-morrow as well as to-day. 
They saw there would come inevitably a breach with 
friendships and kinships, while they could not see all 



CRISES OF DECISION IN CONVERSION. 277 

the trouble that the new, strange future would bring 
forth. The age was against them in a cyclone of 
threats and perils. Here Peter spoke and pressed the 
last word — their real danger, the final break that had 
to be made — " Save yourselves from this crooked gen- 
eration." 

It was after all this testimony and exhortation, so 
many burning words from inspired lips that the com- 
plete surrender of the will was made. ''They then 
that received his word were baptized." It was the full 
obedience of faith, on their part — a very glory of 
the Gospel's power, a mighty victory of numbers, "in 
that day three thousand souls." 

The same need exists now. Is it not true in the 
case of some of you this very hour ? You have felt 
the guilt of your sins ; you have learned the Way of 
salvation, and still you hesitate to obey the Gospel. 
It is not a question of light. You see your own con- 
dition, and you do not deny it; nay, you feel your 
need of forgiveness with God ; and you can not say 
that you are ignorant of the Gospel's plain precepts 
and promises. The crisis with you is the crisis of de- 
cision — whether you will walk in the light, whether 
you will act upon your convictions, whether you will 
be baptized in a heartiness of repentance and faith. 
The trouble is the trouble of outside influences, as these 
play upon one, and weaken one's will. We are be- 
coming used to that word environment, and we see 
how it aptly describes one's life about him, the things 
outside of him and around him that yet go so far to 
determine what one will be and what one will do. The 
spirit of the age, the atmosphere of a family, the 
customs of society, the tastes of a clique, the demands 



278 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS 

of a calling, the settled tendencies of individual habits 
— all these make a very network of influences that 
wind over and in a man's character, until when some 
mighty voice of duty sounds in his ear, and reverber- 
ates in his conscience, summoning him to a new and 
better life, he needs to hear over and over the particu- 
lar note, "Save yourself from your generation; " and 
very often the voice must be more particular and per- 
sistent still, "Save yourself from yourself." 

Let us see. There may be some one special influ- 
ence of this kind from which one and another needs to 
be saved in the full redemption of the Gospel. I want 
to speak chiefly of two powers, characteristic of this 
generation, which many find that they must break 
away from, as the Spirit of God convicts them of sin 
and enlightens them concerning salvation. 

1. Many need to be saved from certain influences of 
social pleasures. Does that sound like a familiar note 
of the pulpit ? Are you led to expect a tirade against 
the follies of fashion and the frivolities of society ? It 
is easy enough to indulge in that. But it may be a very 
cheap performance, without either sweetness or light, 
unreasonable, uninstructive, unhelpful, a blind purchase 
of applause after all, when the preacher thinks that he 
is discharging a high duty of conscience in the sight 
of God and the people. No ; there never was a time 
in the history of young lives when preacher and people 
so much needed to say, " Come, let us reason together 
concerning pleasures and amusements." The Church 
must consider the subject, and speak of it, in united 
love and wisdom. We are exhorting young men and 
women to be saved. Very often they reach the point 
of conviction, in seriousness, if not in penitence and 



CRISES OF DECISION IN CONVERSION. 279 

tears ; and they hear the exhortation to leave off this 
custom of amusement, to forsake that habit of pleasure, 
if they would be saved. And the battle begins, a con- 
flict with one's generation and with one's self — questions 
of casuistry, assertions of self-will, while all the time 
conscience strongly protests that salvation is needed. 
" Must I give up the dance, to be a Christian?" says 
a bright-faced girl. ' ' Is attendance at the theater in- 
compatible with a Christian profession ? " asks a high- 
spirited collegian. 

I beg you to begin back farther than that. Salva- 
tion is too large, too serious, too grand a question, to 
be debated or settled at this or that point of worldly 
diversion. If there is any hunger or cry of your heart 
for eternal life, you must come down to the whole 
subject of amusements, indeed to every earthly way 
or doing, from a lofty plane of light and duty. I be- 
lieve that you can do it — every one of you young 
people. It is the dictate of both faith and reason, 
showing you what you are, what God made you for, 
and why Christ died to redeem you. As you see and 
appreciate all this, you will say that I am right in ex- 
horting you to be saved from certain influences of 
social pleasures of this generation. 

Listen. I want to impress you here with two facts. 
There is no salvation for a man or woman whose life is 
a life of worldly amusement. You can not have the 
salvation of the Gospel, and run every day of the 
month, and every month of the year, in a round ot 
fashionable jollity. For any one to live thus in pleasure, 
is to be dead while he lives. A true life, in the light 
of the Gospel of Christ, can not be a holiday of fun 
and merry-making. The first fact for a Christian to 



28o EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

accept and act upon in regard to amusements, is that 
amusement ought to be not the rule, but the exception, 
of his life. Did I say a Christian ? I mean a Chris- 
tian, as I mean also every rational being. God made 
lambs and kittens and children to play ; yet even in 
the frolic of children He is training their faculties 
of body and mind for work. Industry; industry of 
reason ; industry that expresses purpose and embodies 
good ; regular, wise industry — this is the truth and 
health of a rational life. When a man lives in this 
right way, amusement becomes to him, indeed, recre- 
ation. He chooses it; he enters into it heartily; he 
richly enjoys it ; he is re-created, made over, a healthy, 
happy, thoughtful man, ready and eager for labor and 
toil. If there is a sin that you may pray to be saved 
from, it is the sin of idleness as a daily, lifetime habit 
— whether coarse idleness or aesthetic idleness, whether 
the idleness of a barroom loafer, or a fashionable beau, 
or a frivolous belle. 

I am sure that many of our young people — and 
some old people — need this special salvation in the 
salvation of the Gospel. They need to be saved from 
idle, fruitless lives, first of all. Their lives lack reason, 
lack intellectual dignity, lack worthy occupation and 
action. It is not primarily a question of cards or 
dances. It is the awful danger of absorption in social 
gayeties — a perilous strain of body and mind in the 
giddy round, and then a complete exhaustion of every 
faculty, no day of thought or work. The multiplicity 
and high fever of these exciting pleasures to-day blind 
young men and young women to the true life of the 
spirit in Jesus Christ. Right there you need the ex- 
hortation, "Save yourself from this generation." 



CRISES OF DECISION IN CONVERSION. 28 1 

Does not a pause sometimes come ? Have you not 
heard the still, small voice of a better, more useful, a 
really happier life, calling you ? Have you not ac- 
knowledged to yourself the emptiness of the so-called 
life of pleasure, its dry rot in your character, even 
while its soft airs and alluring voices detained you from 
your duty to your Lord and Saviour ? I beg you, heed 
the Gospel's call, "Save yourself from yourself" — 
make the break there — turn around in all honesty and 
courage, prepared to live as you and I and every other 
child of God ought to live ; and then you will easily 
settle how and when you may be amused. It will then 
be a very unwise, sympathetic church that can not for- 
bearingly teach and guide its young disciples aright, 
with fewer and fewer mistakes, concerning social 
amusements. 

2. Many need to be saved from certain influences of 
industrial occupations. The picture is wholly different. 
It is not the ball-room, but the store, the shop, the 
farm, the railway. It is the totality of the great 
modern industrial world, with its hum of machinery, 
its busy pens, its rapid transits of grains and goods, 
its bargains and sales, its making money and its build- 
ing a material civilization. You are not an idler, but 
a busy man. You almost have no taste nor time for 
amusement. You rise up early, and late take rest, 
and eat the bread of toil. The lines of anxiety are 
upon your face, the sign of heavier anxieties daily 
burdening your mind and heart. Your hindrance as 
regards salvation, is not the pleasures of the world. 
It is a hindrance of an altogether different kind. It 
is the cares of this world that occupy you, and hold 
you back from your salvation. 



282 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

Believe me, there is a way of right reason here, if 
only you will see it. You want to see that you can be 
a Christian and business man at the same time. The 
Word of God puts no embargo on toil of hand nor 
responsibility of brain. There is a Gospel of industry, 
according to Paul. It speaks on this wise : " Let him 
that stole steal no more : but rather let him labor, 
working with his hands the thing that is good." It 
gives no quarter to the idler and the tramp. "Now 
them that are such we command and exhort in the 
Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and 
eat their own bread." It distils the quintessence of 
all political economy, the secret of an industrial civili- 
zation — "If any will not work, neither let him eat. " 

What a lesson for any business man who lets his 
business come between him and salvation ! It need not 
be so. If it does, where the fault lies is plain enough 
to be seen. The thirst for riches, making haste to be 
rich, money-making as a fever, no time for anything 
else — no time for church, no time for home, no time 
to read the Bible, no time to pray — as these habits 
fetter a man, he needs to hear the thunders of warn- 
ings from God's Word. "The love of money is a 
root of all evil." " How hard is it for them that trust 
in riches to enter into the kingdom of God." "The 
cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and 
the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, 
and it becometh unfruitful." The warnings are not a 
bit too loud nor often to arouse and convict men in 
their worship of the god of this world. And what 
makes them so reasonable while so terrible, is that they 
are meant to open one's eyes to the noble ideal of 
earthly prosperity and spiritual character possible in 



CRISES OF DECISION IN CONVERSION. 283 

every man's life. So the Apostle John taught Gaius 
while he prayed for him — "Beloved, I pray that in 
all things thou mayest prosper and be in health, even 
as thy soul prospereth. " There is the truth for you, 
the positive, rational, beautiful truth, as the Gospel 
teaches and exhorts you to be saved. To conduct an 
honest and honorable business, and to build a spiritual 
character, together — this is to be your salvation. What 
is wrong as a calling, or what is wrong in your calling, 
you are to be saved from. If your business is of bad 
report, generating vice and calling down blame, save 
yourself from it. Save yourself from the barroom, 
and from the still-house, and from the gambling-turf. If 
your calling is virtuous and praiseworthy, and you 
have been abusing it, correct the abuse, and use it 
aright for the good of man and the glory of God. 
Here, I doubt not, is the needed exhortation for not 
a few persons to-day : be ye saved from the iniquity of 
a wrong business, be ye saved from slavery to a right 
business, as the sword of the Spirit pierces your heart 
with its convictions. Here break the last fetter ; here 
make the final, complete surrender, and the jubilee of 
your salvation begins. 

These are two great hindrances of this generation 
— fetters of pleasure, fetters of business. But they 
are not all. There are more than can be mentioned in 
a single sermon. Nay, there are subtle bonds, some 
single bond, some peculiar bond, holding this or that 
person, which the preacher may not clearly understand 
nor describe. It is felt by the sinner, even though not 
fully acknowledged, sometimes in the conviction of 
days or years. The Way is plain, the conscience pro- 
tests, and still the man is not saved, because something 



284 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

of what is around him and about him holds him back 
with its potent charm. Is it an influence of companion- 
ship ? How deceptive that may be ! I do not mean 
the companion that talks to you against the Church, or 
shames you out of obeying the Gospel, or argues you 
down by his unbelief of religion. No, not him ; but 
the friend — silent, courteous, perhaps — whose friendship 
makes an atmosphere where faith can not thrive. He 
says nothing, or her air is that of indifference ; but in 
that presence, because of its spirit, aim, taste, you 
know that any honest, open, positive profession of a 
Christian finds no congenial acceptance. You feel 
that, practically, to join the Church, you must give up 
any intimacies of friendship. Right here the paths 
diverge. Even, in a simpler way, does the trial come, 
while just as seriously a trial — say, to a young boy 
who should have to face the laugh or the jeer of his 
playmates, and show a heroism of faith just as real in 
quality as the faith of a martyr among the lions. Nor 
only the charm of some close personal friendship, but 
the association with a coterie, for instance, decent and 
moral enough in all appearance, but where the stand- 
ards of thought and the prevalence of sentiment 
silently repress the health and bloom of a spiritual 
character. Or also some larger circle, more impersonal 
still, professional, literary, political, usually without 
very strict lines, where yet some sudden restriction of 
the lines, in either a theory or a practice, compels you 
to make a break if you would serve the Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

Ah ! that was no superfluous work when Peter went 
on exhorting that Pentecostal day in Jerusalem. It 
was one of the realest scenes in all this real life. It 



CRISES OF DECISION IN CONVERSION. 285 

was the crisis of decision, the hour of destiny, for 
many a sinner. They stood convicted, not only con- 
victed, but enlightened, the glory of salvation shining 
all around them, in which they might walk at liberty 
in openly confessing Christ. There they stood, con- 
victed and enlightened, yet trembling and hesitating at 
the line of complete surrender. "Be ye saved from 
this crooked generation," cried out the man of God, 
pleading and exhorting at that decisive point. Yes, 
at the very last moment, they needed to be saved from 
a nation's haughtiness, from family pride, from social 
vanity, from the Pharisee's pride of character, from 
the Sadducee's pride of intellect, from any and every 
influence of that generation which stopped them from 
immediately becoming Christians ; just as so many of 
you need to save yourselves from your environments 
— you from headlong pleasures, you from absorption 
in business, you from a silken friendship, you from 
some professional bondage, you from political corrup- 
tion, in order to live as a child of God. I exhort you 
at the last step, as you feel your need of a Saviour. I 
exhort you, as you see the clear Way of salvation. I 
exhort you, as you now simply tremble, wait, hesitate, 
wonder. I exhort you at the very last step — the real 
surrender down in your heart; repent! repent! Be 
ye saved there first of all. In this day of the Lord's 
power, be willing to be saved. In mind and heart 
really, as the Spirit of truth convicts you, yield, yield, 
turn to God. I beseech you, in your heart believe the 
Gospel of your salvation ; for with the heart man be- 
lieves unto righteousness. In your heart repent of 
your sins ; for God grants you repentance unto life. 
Out of your heart confess your Saviour and Lord ; for 



286 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 
From the heart be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ 
unto the remission of your sins ; for your baptism will 
beautifully represent your salvation, it will helpfully 
confirm your salvation, it will blessedly associate your 
salvation with the salvation of others, it will signifi- 
cantly consummate your salvation in an obedience 
whose process is one with your salvation day by day, 
and the end eternal life. 



SERMON XIV. 

The Gospel, a Mission 
and a Culture. 



XIV. 
THE GOSPEL, A MISSION AND A CULTURE. 

'•Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing 
them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy 
Spirit : teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded 
you: and Io, 1 am with you all the days, even unto the end of the 
world." — Matt, xxviii. /g, 20. 

The Gospel of Christ, studied in itself and studied 
in its history, has always presented these two ideas. 
The Gospel of Christ is a mission, and it is also a spir- 
itual culture. " Make disciples of all the nations *' — 
there it is a mission, a world-wide propagation. 
"Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I 
commanded you" — there it is an unlimited spiritual 
culture of life. These two ideas, as such,, are insep- 
arably connected. They have their vital unity in the 
very nature of the Gospel, corresponding to the nature 
of man. They are the secret of Christ's undying in- 
fluence on human nature and in human history. They 
were meant to go along together in a beautiful oneness 
of beneficence. The insistence on either idea to the 
neglect of the other, always does harm, and keeps 
back the complete triumph of the Gospel. 

In the long eighteen centuries since Christianity be- 
gan — began as a mission and as a spiritual culture — 
we can see the working of these two ideas at every 

step of its progress. They have worked at every step 

(289) 



29O EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

in some way or other. They have made swift progress 
seldom, if ever, together at one time. Often, being 
separated, one has gone ahead successfully for a while, 
only to stop and be compelled to wait until the other 
has caught up ; and, being separated, what one has 
achieved it has often found weakened because the 
other was not present with its balance of power. The 
Gospel as a mission has sometimes spread with the 
swiftness of wind or fire. It has crossed over into a 
Macedonia upon hearing the midnight cry for help, 
and the following day thousands have been baptized. 
Then there seems to have come, frequently, a pause. 
The Gospel had been propagated as a mission — disci- 
ples had been made ; it needed to be grown as a spir- 
itual culture of character — the disciples needed to be 
taught the manifold precepts of their Lord. But too 
often the growing of the Gospel as a spiritual culture 
of life has been attempted with a neglect of propagat- 
ing it as a mission. The Church has settled down to 
mere speculation and criticism, and conversions to 
Christ have become infrequent. Then the propaga- 
tive idea has burst out afresh, sometimes running terri- 
ble risks of perversions. We read again of stirring 
revivals, sometimes the conversion almost of a nation, 
or almost of a little province. But the propagative 
idea again subsides, and the work of grafting must be 
taken up once more. Such has been the progress of 
the Gospel with its double ideas — not a uniform prog- 
ress, but one-sided ; not a simple, untrammeled prog- 
ress, but varied, struggling, laborious. 

The occasion of it all is, that while Christianity is 
itself spiritual, spiritual as a mission and spiritual as a 
culture, it has been compelled to take men as they are, 



THE TWOFOLD GOSPEL. 2C;I 

men making the world as it is, making it so because of 
the earth on which they must exist and toil and die. 
The Gospel and earthly climates ; the Gospel and na- 
tional temperaments ; the Gospel and human history 
— this is a necessary study amid all spreadings of the 
Gospel. Where it is preached on the earth, to whom 
it is preached, and especially at what stage of civiliza- 
tion it strikes a people, are immensely important ques- 
tions. After men are baptized, the Lord does not 
translate them at once to heaven. Both Elijahs and 
Elishas are found in the Church on earth. The re- 
deemed of the Lord stay here in this world, and some 
of them stay a long time. I think we ought to question 
ourselves severely whether we fully appreciate why 
Christians are present in this world. We say rightly 
that we are here to win the world to Christ. But do we 
see all the details involved in this answer? It is well 
enough to say that it takes time to evangelize the 
world. But why does it take time ? It is the very 
manifoldness of the ideas of the Gospel that requires 
time for their realization. It is because they are trav- 
eling to reality through the channels of human nature 
between the banks of human history. Christianity, as a 
mission and as a spiritual culture, touches, leavens, stim- 
ulates, transfigures what we call civilization. It can not 
help having something to do with the clearing of a 
forest, and with the building of a court-house ; with 
the spread of commerce, and with the growth of an 
educational system ; with measures of war, and with 
measures of peace ; with revolutions of nationalities, 
and with developments of legislation. The baptism of 
a penitent believer in boyhood, his death in venerable 
saintliness ; the beginning of the Gospel from Jerusa- 



292 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

lem, its end in the descent of the New Jerusalem from 
the opened heavens — between these periods is the aw- 
ful immensity of earthly annals. Christianity can not 
skip them nor go around them. It must go under 
them and through them, become part and parcel of 
them, touch them, leaven them, transfigure them. 
Whatever man is and can become, rationally and spir- 
itually, in respect of his own individuality, in respect 
of family, in respect of society, in respect of citizen- 
ship, in short, in the developments and adaptations of 
his whole nature rationally and spiritually — all this 
Christianity must take account of, and seriously take 
under its influence forever. 

Mark the important epochs of Christianity, and see 
how they, one by one, with their special facts and fea- 
tures, illustrate these two forces of Christ's Gospel, 
a mission and a spiritual culture — concerned both with 
making disciples, and then making spiritual all their 
capacities and talents — concerned with man and man- 
kind — forgiving men their past sins, and then claiming 
vital kinship with whatever interests men everywhere, 
rationally and spiritually. 

A hundred years of the Gospel have gone by, and 
before half of this time had passed, Paul the Apostle 
declares, "From Jerusalem, and round about, even 
unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the Gospel of 
Christ." Nay, so widely has the Gospel spread, such 
a propagation has it been, that he breaks forth in mag- 
nificent hyperbole — "preached in all creation under 
heaven." The Gospel had spread, a swift train of sal- 
vation, unchecked even through prairie fires of perse- 
cution. Every drop of martyr's blood became the 
seed of a church. 



THE TWOFOLD GOSPEL. 293 

Three hundred years have gone by ; and now the 
Roman Emperor bows before the vision of the Cross. 
Whatever the perversions of the Gospel in this time, 
whatever the beginnings of the awful tyranny of the 
Papacy, the triumph of Christianity in Roman so- 
ciety and government was a genuine triumph. It had 
worked its way against its enemies, often notwith- 
standing its friends, through heart and conscience to 
public recognition — the doom of idolatry, the standard 
of morals, the heart of philanthropy, the ideal of char- 
acter. 

A thousand years have gone by. This mighty Ro- 
man Empire, this mightiest empire of the ancient 
world, has been trampled into pieces under the con- 
quering feet of the Northern tribes. The doom of de- 
cay was already in its heart when Christ was born. 
Weakened amid social luxuries and torn by military 
ambitions, it fell at last before the influx of fresh and 
hardy stock, as it poured down from the German for- 
ests. But the Church was there, with the Gospel still, 
though a perverted Gospel ; with many a manhood of 
thought and piety, notwithstanding a hierarchy was 
now lording it over God's heritage. And it was the 
Church, as judged equally by a practical English histo- 
rian like Macaulay and a speculative German philoso- 
pher like Hegel — it was the Church that saved human 
society from utter wreck, and slowly gathered the ma- 
terials and established the conditions for the develop- 
ment of the modern world. She led captive to Christ 
the fierce conquerors of the Empire ; she became the asy- 
lum of the oppressed ; she conveyed ancient literature 
through the storm ; she preserved and copied the Bible ; 
she was the patron of art, although the foe of science ; 



294 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

it was her preaching, in spite of its corruptions, her 
organization, notwithstanding its tyrannies, that were 
the providences of God in preserving the social struc- 
ture, and holding humanity to any knowledge of the 
redemption in Christ, and mysteriously feeding that 
double sense of the liberty of each man, the equality 
of all men, before God, which makes possible the re- 
alization at last of Christ's universal and eternal king- 
dom. 

For, when five hundred years more had passed, 
fifteen hundred years since the Gospel began from Je- 
rusalem, the new day of religious liberty dawned upon 
Europe. It was the age of Luther and the Reforma- 
tion. But the liberty of the day was something more 
than religious. It was not only the protest of Luther 
against the Pope. There was also a tremendous em- 
phasis of intellectual liberty. There were rapid and 
mighty assertions of civil liberty. It was, in the 
largest sense, the emancipation of mind, whose sun 
arose after the long night of the Middle Ages. It was 
not only the Gospel, reasserted in its essential simplic- 
ity, but more. See how the wonders are close to- 
gether in time. Luther was born in 1483. Gutenberg 
had discovered the art of printing in 1450. Columbus 
was to discover America in 1492, and the new route 
to far-off India was to be found even before Columbus 
set sail. Copernicus, almost date by date with Lu- 
ther's work, revolutionized astronomy. Paracelsus, born 
ten years after Luther, dying five years before Luther, 
originated chemistry as a science, with his doctrine — 
4 'The true use of chemistry is not to discover gold, 
but to prepare medicines." A new religion, the old 
Gospel renewed, but at the same time a new heaven, 



THE TWOFOLD GOSPEL. 295 

a new earth, a new world ! It was all a reality of new- 
ness because of the new attitude of the human mind. 
Meanwhile had come the revival of learning right along 
with the printing press — the literature of the past, the 
treasure of the life of ancient humanity, revealed to 
the diligent search of scholar and the eager interest of 
humanist. 

How luminous the lessons of these facts are ! The 
Gospel of Christ, and literature, — the Gospel of Christ, 
and science, — the Gospel of Christ, and commerce, — 
these are necessarily to be read together, to be studied 
together, to be lived together, if men are to know 
themselves, and what they are about. It took fifteen 
centuries for the Western world to learn this lesson at 
any depth. It was only the leaders then that learned 
the lesson at any depth. It has taken three hundred 
years more for the lesson to be read in its largest lights 
even by teachers in Israel ; it is only in the nineteenth 
century that the people, chiefly the English-speaking 
people, have begun to spell it out, to their unfailing 
instruction and inspiration. 

We are all beginning to see more clearly that the 
Gospel of Christ is more than a mission. ''Go ye 
therefore, and make disciples of all the nations " — 
there it is a mission, a mission of favor and mercy, or- 
dained by its Author to be preached to the whole cre- 
ation, that men, by believing and being baptized, may 
be sa.ved from all their sins. But — "teaching them to 
observe all things whatsoever I commanded you " — 
there it is a spiritual culture for the development of all 
the rational and spiritual possibilities of human nature. 
As a mission and a culture, it is a sublime and satisfy- 
ing unity. Saving men by favor and mercy, it is this 



296 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

fact that is to be the powerful and endless motive of 
the growth of men, through their many-sided capaci- 
ties, in their different vocations, through their varied 
experiences, into spirituality of character. "I be- 
seech you, therefore, by the mercies of God " — this is 
the eternal reminder, to-morrow as well as to-day. 
By that first fact, the favor of God in Christ, which 
Christ brought us by His Incarnation and Sacrifice, the 
Gospel is the prime authority for all moral obedience. 
Every step in moral progress that does not begin from 
this obedience to the authority of Christ, in which we 
receive the forgiveness of sins, will be a misstep and a 
failure. The nation in which the Gospel is not pow- 
erfully present as a mission, will catch the infection 
of moral decay. But, present as a mission, propa- 
gated in its mission of favor and mercy, there comes 
the other duty, equally important, to grow it as a 
spiritual culture, to develop disciples, through their 
many-sided capacities, in their different vocations, 
through their varied experiences, into spirituality of 
character. 

All this will be done as the Gospel takes men as 
they are, men making the world as it is, making it so 
bcause of the earth on which they must exist and toil 
and die. It is only another way of saying that 
Christianity and civilization must go along together in 
mutual actions and reactions. See this fact verified in 
the history of our own Nation. The Pilgrim Fathers, 
landing upon Plymouth Rock in the attitude of prayer ; 
the pioneer men of our own West and South, hallow- 
ing camp and cabin by Gospel and song, — had upon 
their hands the work of building the temple of Ameri- 
can nationality. They believed God — they cleared 



THE TWOFOLD GOSPEL. 297 

forests. They loved Christ — they founded towns and 
cities. They read their Bibles — they passed laws fof 
civil dignity and peace. They prayed — they organized 
the State. They sang psalms and hymns and spiritual 
son crs — they gave a start to common schools. They 
served God — they served Caesar. While rejoicing for 
their redemption in Christ, while hoping for Heaven, 
they were planting the seeds of a Christian civilization, 
watering them with their tears, sometimes with blood, 
dying before the harvest, leaving it for others to enter 
into their labors 

See this fact, the need of the Gospel as a mission, 
the need of it as a spiritual culture of American civili- 
zation, also verified vividly for us right here in Ken- 
tucky. I refer to the mountain counties. The Gospel 
has been preached there a great deal. Fifty years ago 
our devoted evangelists rode over those hill countries, 
baptized people, organized churches. Their reports 
glowed with the recital of the numbers that turned to 
the Lord. To-day our State missionary board is per- 
plexed over the religious condition of those mountain 
congregations. They confess that it is a problem. 
They see that something more is necessary for them 
than just to make disciples of the mountaineers. It is 
plain that the churches there need to be taught " to ob- 
serve all things" commanded by Christ. And it is no 
wild leap, it is a rational and logical step, when our mis- 
sionary women send thither a preacher that is also a 
schoolmaster, who, preaching on the Lord's day, may 
teach school during the week, and all the while live as 
an example before the community, in a well-ordered 
Christian family. What does all this mean but the 
individual man, the social man, in being redeemed > 



298 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

must be cultured into a spiritual life along all the lines 
of his rational and spiritual nature ? 

The same lesson holds good about foreign missions, 
most vividly of all where the Gospel is preached to the 
lowest heathen. It is the preacher, and the school- 
teacher ; the preacher, and the physician ; the preacher, 
and the printer ; the preacher, and his colony of 
artisans ; the preacher, and his Christian family — all 
these living the Gospel while the Gospel is preached. 
The Gospel, and the plow; the Gospel, and books; 
the Gospel, and the railway — so broadly, while making 
disciples of all nations, does the Gospel lay the founda- 
tions upon which they may build a Christian civili- 
zation. 

The Gospel of Christ, therefore, as a spiritual 
culture of character ought to be a conscience and a set 
purpose and hope with all of us disciples. Whatever 
our name, whatever our station, whatever our calling, 
whatever our talents, we ought to believe that we can 
grow into spiritual manhood along all the lines of a 
rational and spiritual nature. Such a faith ought to be 
a clear, immovable, individual faith with each man ; 
he ought to cherish it as his right, his grant from his 
Creator, whose possibility redeems this earthly life 
from all lowness and despair, and gives it dignity and 
radiant hope. 

What these main lines of our rational development 
are. I think that no one has more luminously pointed 
out than Matthew Arnold, in his famous fourfold 
phrasings on the subject. He felicitously strikes off 
the matter by calling attention to four lines of human 
development — first, the line of conduct ; second, the 
line of intellect ; third, the line of beauty ; fourth, the 



THE TWOFOLD GOSPEL. 299 

line of manners. The more you think upon such a 
generalization, the more you will say that it can not be 
excelled. They admirably sum up the rational and 
spiritual possibilities of man. All history testifies to 
them. All stages of civilization, more of less, have 
felt their presence. The ideals of progress shine upon 
them and allure them. The Gospel of Christ must 
seriously take them under its influence. For the 
Gospel is as broad and deep as human nature. The 
teaching of Jesus Christ is meant not only to bring 
salvation from sin, but to be seed thought and germinal 
power for every rational and spiritual capacity of man. 
Listen to this splendid precept from one of Christ's 
Apostles — from Paul ; it is a pregnant, healthful, ex- 
haustive description of Christianity as a spiritual cul- 
ture : "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, 
whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are 
just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are 
lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ; if there 
be any virtue, and if there be any praise, take account 
of these things." That is what the great "doctor of 
the Gentiles " enjoins on you and me as Christians. 
We are Christians ; but we are men. We are men ; 
and we are Christians. We are Christian men. As 
men, because the Creator so constituted us, we must do 
duty, we must think reason, we must perceive beauty, 
we must observe manners ; but we must do it all as 
Christians. The spirit, the light, the motive of all our 
living must come from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
What is thus true of the individual Christian is 
also applicable to congregations. They have a con- 
gregational life as such, to be affected vitally by the 
Gospel as a mission and the Gospel as a spiritual 



300 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

culture of character. Many of these churches have 
been long-planted churches in long-inhabited States. 
With these two sides of the Gospel, a mission and a 
culture, the conditions of the long-planted churches 
will affect favorably or unfavorably all further spread 
of the Gospel ; just as all spreading of the Gospel as a 
mission will generate motives and needs for the grow- 
ing it as a spiritual culture. In these communities 
there is still a large number to whom the Gospel must 
be preached as a mission of favor and mercy. It is 
blindness to think that this number is ever exhausted 
in any neighborhood. And this propagation of the 
Gospel as a mission by long-planted churches, in long- 
settled communities, must be carried on, for us 
Americans, where the present stage of American civili- 
zation, largely produced by Christianity as to its good 
parts, has been acting back on church life, on Chris- 
tian living, on all progress of the Gospel. We are 
blind to this momentous fact, at our deadly peril as 
Christians and as churches of Christ. We must look 
at and understand the power of Christianity on family 
life, on social life, on the States and the Nation, and 
their reactive influence on Christianity. If Christianity 
is to be the dominant power of a community, if the 
Church is to be the light of society and civilization, 
we must live and work as Christians and as congrega- 
tions, with our eyes open to all these facts and their 
mutual influences. 

Emphatically should the preacher of the Gospel 
proclaim the Word with his eyes wide open to the 
present status of American civilization, as the Gospel 
influences all the rational and spiritual lines of human 
development. Sound morals, true science, pure tastes,. 



THE TWOFOLD GOSPEL. 30I 

noble manners — with these the Gospel of Jesus Christ 
has vital kinship. If the preacher cares for sound 
morals, he must speak pointedly against the vices and 
crimes of the liquor traffic, as it threatens the moral 
integrity of this nation. If he cares for true science, 
he must advocate liberty of thought, and inculcate the 
true spirit of tolerance. If he cares for pure tastes, 
he must proclaim the dangers of godless art, and 
vividly set forth the Bible breadths and depths of 
beauty. If he cares for noble manners, he must show 
the bad effects and hurtful hindrances of barbarous 
manners. I do not mean that every preacher is to 
give his time to moralizing on duty, or theorizing on 
science, or lecturing on aesthetics, or framing rules of 
etiquette ; but I do mean that he should preach the 
Word of God with his eyes open to its farthest influ- 
ences, rationally and spiritually, on human nature and 
human civilization. He need not stop to give minute 
counsels ; but he ought to hold up Divine standards. 
He need not discuss varied effects ; but he ought to 
describe inevitable tendencies. He need not advocate 
fanciful theories ; but he ought to picture glorious 
possibilities. Wherever the Gospel touches human 
life for rational and spiritual good — the line of conduct, 
the line of intellect, the line of beauty, the line of 
manners — thither the preacher ought to look and to 
point, enlightening, counseling, exhorting — his speech, 
"as it were, oracles of God." 

There is a loud call for such preaching and for 
such churches, a loud call from every direction, and 
incessantly, in these long-inhabited communities where 
churches have been long planted. These rational and 
spiritual capacities of man are calling for wholesome 



302 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

development. Some kind of development they wilt 
have. Some kind of civilization there will be. And 
the serious question is whether it shall be agnostic or 
Christian, whether merely utilitarian or fully spiritual. 
If the preachers of the Gospel ignore or neglect any 
rational or spiritual possibility of human nature, they 
in the end but keep back the progress of the Gospel. 
If the Church gives no attention to these varied capaci- 
ties, if she narrowly views the purposes of the Gospel, 
if, in working for eternity, she works slightingly, in- 
differently, incompletely for time, then civilization is a 
hopeless, Godless, Christless affair, and the Church be- 
comes a kind of surgical institute, and not a home for 
rational and spiritual living. 

I have no doubt but the minds of many of you 
have been running ahead of the sermon, and applying 
its truth to our own beloved congregation. It is a 
long-established church, in a long-established com- 
munity. It is a historic church, rich in memories that 
are sacred to the hearts of its venerable lifelong 
members, and that speak a manifold lesson of duty and 
privilege to all. Such a church is not made in a day. 
It is a growth. It is what it is this festal hour no little 
because of what many faithful men and women have 
done for it in the long passing years. We are rejoicing 
specially to-day in the presence of this large number, 
the adult and the little child, who have put on Christ 
in baptism, and will for the first time join with us in our 
weekly communion of the body and blood of the Lord. 
But, brethren, we rejoice through thanksgivings, as 
well as in hope. I bid you look back beyond, far 
beyond, the special mission of the Gospel during these 
daily services of a month. Look back a half-century.. 



THE TWOFOLD GOSPEL. 303 

Fifty-three years ago, a band of a dozen brethren and 
sisters meeting down on Lower street in a shabby old 
house, sitting on rough-hewn benches, a dry goods box 

improvised into a pulpit; and to-day ! "What 

hath God wrought!" Others have labored, and we 
have entered into their labors. The triumph of evan- 
gelism again this month is livingly linked with the 
history of the Gospel in a long-standing church — the 
Gospel as a mission, and the Gospel as a culture, both 
together year after year in the lives and services of the 
elect of God. How many have here turned to the 
Lord under the preaching of a Henderson, a Franklin, 
a Lard, a Hopson ! How many little lambs have here 
sung their hosannas, and here been baptized, taught by 
the saintly teacher * who, beyond threescore years and 
ten, is still spared for his long-time work, his eye 
not dim, his strength unabated ! How sweetly solemn 
it is to see there in his chair, every Lord's day 
almost unfailingly, the hoary-headed disciple f past 
his four-score and ten, the honored nonagenarian, 
more than half of his life marking his prayers and 
toils for the old Main Street church ! Ah ! venerable 
men and women, the time would fail me to call you 
each by name, not a few with us to-day, many, alas ! 
now too feeble even to totter to the house of the Lord, 
or ever again to sit down with us in this court of our 
God! 

Men and women of these later days, children and 
grandchildren of the pioneer fathers and mothers, I 
exhort you, count your mercies and behold your 
privileges. The Gospel has come to you in a beauti- 
ful heritage of ancestral faith and piety, to give you 

* William Van Pelt, f Joseph G. Chinn. 



304 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS. 

salvation from all sin in the sacrifice of the Son of 
God. The Gospel is come to you in gentle influences, 
that you may grow thereby into perfect manhood in 
fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Let your man- 
ner of life be worthy of the Gospel. Bring every 
thought into captivity to Christ. Let His service be 
your daily meat and drink. Grow, grow into an all- 
sided life, every talent, every aspiration, every taste, 
your whole mind and heart, reason, conscience, will, 
a rich development of character in obedience to Christ 
as Saviour and Lord. We are to go on holding this 
Gospel as a mission and a culture. Our individual 
salvation, our individual spiritual growth, must be re- 
alized in brotherly union and service. We must seek 
for wisdom from above to live before this community 
as a church of Christ ought to live, sounding forth 
the Gospel to the whole creation, holding forth the 
Word in our conduct before the world. We have to 
aspire to all that a church ought to be, as it feeds the 
hungry, visits the sick, teaches the ignorant, guides 
the young — a home for lonely hearts, a refuge for 
souls storm-tossed and driven, a gateway to Heaven 
sometimes for the venerable saint as he sits and listens 
for the Master's call, sometimes for the little child 
whose infant voice has here learned to sing the praises 
of the Lord. The close of the nineteenth century, an 
eminent city with the virtues and vices, the privileges 
and perils of American civilization, and ourselves one" 
of the churches of God charged with the responsibility 
of the Gospel as a mission and a culture — let our duty 
and our privilege and our hope fill mind and heart as 
the voice of Jesus Christ our Lord speaks adown the 
ages — "Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing 



THE TWOFOLD GOSPEL. 305 

them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all 
things whatsoever I commanded you : and, lo ! I am 
with you all the days, even unto the end of the 
world." 



ESSAY, 

Scriptural and Catholic 
Creed ok Baptism:. 



THE NICENE CREED. 

I believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and 
earth, And of all things visible and invisible : 

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, Be- 
gotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very 
God of very God, Begotten, not made, Being of one substance with the 
Father, By whom all things were made ; Who, for us men, and for our 
salvation, came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy 
Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was crucified also for us under Pontius 
Pilate. He suffered, and was buried ; And the third day he rose again, 
according to the Scriptures; And ascended into heaven, And sitteth on 
the right hand of the Father ; And he shall come again with glory, to 
judge both the quick and the dead, Whose kingdom shall have no end. 

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life ; Who 
proceeds from the Father and the Son, Who with the Father and the Son 
together [is worshiped and glorified, Who spake by the Prophets ; And 
I believe one Catholic and Apostolic Church ; I acknowledge one Bap- 
tism for the remission of sins ; And I look for the Resurrection of the 
dead ; And the Life of the world to come. Amen. 
(308) 



THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC CREED 
OF BAPTISM.* 



THE ^INTEREST OF THE SUBJECT. 

"I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of 
sins " — so the echo of the old creed has sounded 
through fifteen Christian centuries. " Their ministers 
have given up baptism for the remission of sins " — 
such not long ago was the report of a provincial Bap- 
tist journal about a body of preachers who, in this 
century, notably have reaffirmed this design of bap- 
tism. In the light of the voice of the old creed from 
Nicaea, and in the light of the gossip of the Baptist 
newspaper, there may be a true interest in this subject. 
It may rightly be a subject for candid and critical study. 
The Baptist organ seemed to report with relish that 
the aforesaid preachers had practically recanted any 
further doctrine of baptism for the remission of sins. 
The Baptist organ itself, while glorying in a denomina- 
tional name that is thoroughly wet with baptism, evi- 
dently holds a theory of baptism that yields no sense of 
a purpose of the remission of sins. Still there is the 
Nicene Creed, fifteen hundred years old, whose con- 
fession concerning baptism is solemnly chanted to-day 
in assemblies of believers ; and there is the fact that, 
especially in the last half centtny, a body of preachers, 

* Reprinted from the " Christian Standard" A. D. 1890. 

(309) 



3IO THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

who profess to go back of Nicaea to Jerusalem, back 
of the authority of a human council to a Divine Apos- 
tleship, back of the wording of a human creed to the 
sound doctrine of an inspired commandment, have re- 
affirmed, with all the enthusiasm of edifying a critical 
historical need, the truth of baptism for the remission 
of sins. 

The gossip of the Baptist editor has done us all 
good — us who repeat the Nicene note with hearty as- 
sent. It has set us thinking. It has called out edito- 
rials and contributions, questions and answers, essays 
and replies and rejoinders, testimonies and confessions. 
We have had, indeed, but another proof how each 
generation needs to refresh its mind on truth for itself, 
whether truth of Bible or Nature. Our very knowl- 
edge of truth will fade and become dim, except as we 
think it over for ourselves and study its bearings on 
duty, and mark its new help for new needs, and learn 
its good amid the ever-widening experiences of thought 
and life. We may be thankful for the indirect benefit 
occasioned by misunderstandings and misreports if, 
apart from the heat and smoke of debate, we are aroused 
to investigate again any Scripture doctrine for its mean- 
ing and profitableness. It is a signal, indeed, for grat- 
ulation when we look up and begin to see that there is 
truth for us. There may rightly be an assurance of 
truth to us in tenderly remembering those of whom we 
have learned it. A traditional truth is none the less 
necessarily rational and eternal truth. Nevertheless, 
all truth seen possible for us, whether in sacred tradi- 
tions of the heart's own sweet memories or unmistaka- 
bly proved in crises of history, can become truth in us 
only as we receive it anew in vital, personal appre- 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 3 I I 

hensions of one's own thought along with vital, per- 
sonal obediences of one's own will. Anselm, in his 
Cur Deus Homo, has a noble thought about being dili- 
gent, after we have been settled in our faith, to under- 
stand what we believe. Let it be a rebuke to our care- 
lessness, if often we are forced to zeal in studying the 
reason of a faith or a hope only under attacks or mis- 
representations. But let us be thankful if, after all, in 
studying again the grounds of our convictions, we see 
better than ever what sure, catholic, scriptural doc- 
trine we hold, whether of faith or morals or institu- 
tions, and see the doctrine better in discriminating its 
relations to other and larger truth of the Bible. 

All this renewed discussion of baptism for the re- 
mission of sins has straightway led, as never before, to 
a direct study of the sense in which it is for the remis- 
sion of sins. Editorials and essays, private talks and 
private letters, the interest .of the subject now for 
nearly a year — all have steadily centered on this point 
— the sense of baptism for the remission of sins. 
There has been among us no doubt nor denial nor sur- 
render of the doctrine of baptism for the remission of 
sins, as the provincial editor gossips misunderstand- 
ingly of the table-talk of a circle of ministerial guests. 
No ; all we humble reformatory disciples, advocating 
truly catholic doctrine, acknowledge what was addi- 
tionally embodied in the creed of Nicaea — "one bap- 
tism for the remission of sins " — and what was author- 
itatively commanded in the Gospel at Jerusalem : 
"Be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus 
Christ unto the remission of your sins." Our real in- 
vestigation, more than debate or difference, our serious 
study, is the sense of baptism for the remission of sins. 



312 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

Certainly the great majority of us are seeking to be 
assured intelligently of this Apostolic doctrine, this 
truly catholic doctrine, and to be able to vindicate anew 
the practical good of the doctrine for sinners inquiring 
the way of salvation. On this last point impressively 
does the past speak to us — the past of our pioneer 
days in a religious reformation the grandest since John 
prayed on Patmos — when our pioneer men of God, in 
a dread historical crisis of dark doubts and baleful er- 
rors, proclaimed the old Apostolic commandment to 
whole benighted neighborhoods, until it shone indeed 
like a revelation of the light and mercy of God, and 
thousands upon thousands, as of yore in Jerusalem, 
received the Word, and were baptized. We rightly 
feel, both as readers of the Word and as students of 
history, that such truth of the Gospel, so remarkably 
proved anew at this far-down date in history, has no 
risk at all of being set aside nor given up. An advo- 
cacy of it here and there by the reformatory fathers 
may have been unbalanced. An interpretation of it 
may now and then have been unscriptu rally extreme. 
A use of it occasionally may have been absurd, posi- 
tively foolish. Those godly men may not have seen 
all of its wide relations and rational agreements with 
other and wider truth of the Gospel. But what they 
saw, they saw straight, and they saw right, and what 
they saw they preached in the direct, practical good 
to sinners, the very like of which shines throughout 
the Acts of the Apostles, against all doubt or delay in 
the salvation of every inquirer. 

We of this day feel all the surer, therefore, that a 
scriptural truth, so plainly worded — "Be baptized 
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 3 I 3 

remission of your sins" — and so healthfully taught — 
"They then that received his word were baptized: 
and there were added unto them in that day about 
three thousand souls " — is more than a match for all er- 
ror and heresy. We can but conclude that a real inter- 
est in it, whether in table-talk or in study, means sim- 
ply the effort to see better the exact, full sense of it, the 
point of it for duty, and the place of it in the Gospel 
of grace and glory. To understand thus clearly and 
widely this design of baptism, is what we are shut up 
to, necessarily. It would be a waste of time to argue 
at any length that, in Acts ii. 38, the Word of God 
teaches that, in some sense, baptism is for, unto, in or- 
der to, the remission of sins. To labor at proving that 
the Greek preposition eis does not mean/<?r, unto, in or- 
der to, representing the purpose or object of baptism, 
but means something altogether different, must be left 
to provincial Baptist editors and preachers. The voice 
of critical scholarship settles the meaning of the Greek, 
whether the scholar be Paedobaptist or Baptist. The 
long list of Paedobaptist scholars, lexicographers, com- 
mentators, might be quoted — a Cremer, an Alford, a 
Thayer, a Meyer, a Lange, a Schaff, a Barnes. They 
all agree in the one criticism that, in Acts ii. 38, the 
preposition eis expresses the purpose or object of "be 
baptized." No less do Baptist scholars, whose scholar- 
ship speaks before their theology, join this consensus 
of definition or comment — Hackett, and Boise, and 
Ripley, and Hovey. Still further might the comments 
of scholarship on other Scriptures be educed — Matt, 
xxviii. 19; Mark xvi. 16; Acts xxii. 16; Rom. vi. 3,. 
4; I. Cor. vi. 11 ; Gal. iii. 26, 27; Eph. v. 26; Tit. 
iii. 5; Heb. x. 22 ; I Pet. iii. 21 — interpreting the 



3 14 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

vital relation of one's baptism to one's salvation. 
Every utterance of every creed of Christendom, from 
Nicaea to London, concerning baptism, but yields a 
note of the same kind : it speaks of baptism as in 
some sense really related to redemption, the forgive- 
ness of sins. 

Looked at from every angle of view — scriptural, 
historical, critical or controversial — the capital point of 
interest as regards the design of baptism centers on 
the sense in which it is for the remission of sins. 
Creeds, confessions, commentaries labor at defining 
that. Their very differences prove that some such 
sense needs to be defined. Any historical caricature 
of the scriptural sense still hints at the scriptural sense 
to be truly represented. The very extreme theories of 
it, whether the sacerdotal dogma of the Roman Cath- 
olic Church, opus operatum, an ordinance conveying 
grace independently of the faith of the recipient ; or 
the modern rationalistic doctrine heard sometimes 
among us, that it is a commandment of the Divine 
will to be obeyed by penitent believers for the remis- 
sion of sins, this promise of forgiveness being alto- 
gether abstracted from any moral effect in the candi- 
date baptized, and received by him on the simple con- 
dition of heartfelt repentance and faith, this the whole 
of the matter, with no reality nor realization of Divine 
influences on him or in him in the act of his baptism — 
both of these extreme theories, wrong as they are, 
most signally demonstrate, by their very failure at in- 
terpretation, that still there is some real sense in which 
baptism is for the remission of sins. 

The true, scriptural sense of the design of baptism 
must, accordingly, represent a reality of the remission 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 315 

of sins. It must be a real sense, yet without any taint 
of sacerdotalism. It must be a real sense, which 
suffers no evaporation of spiritual purpose and result. 
It must be a real sense, without countenancing the 
magic of the priest in baptizing a dying babe. It must 
be a real sense, which, in a true process of reason, is 
the very dissolution of the cold mechanics of logic that 
would send half of Christendom and all of heathendom 
to hell because of the lack of baptism. It must be a 
real sense, so that penitent believers, even very young 
boys or girls, repenting and believing, may be bap- 
tized unto the remission of their sins, and, like the 
Ethiopian nobleman, go on their way rejoicing. It 
must be a real sense, following the catholic creed — "I 
acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins " — 
against all Baptist provincialism. It must be a real 
sense, confuting all heresy, corrective of all error, the 
completion of all negative or partial views, the har- 
mony of scriptural truth in the full-orbed light of the 
pattern of sound words, the Apostolic commandment, 
"Be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus 
Christ unto the remission of your sins, " or, "Arise, 
and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on 
his name." 

2. 

THE LARGE LIGHTS OF REDEMPTION IN THE WORD OF 

GOD. 

In what sense, therefore, is baptism for the remis- 
sion of sins ? There is no other doctrine of Scripture 
that requires more careful handling. We are to avoid 
the perversion of sacerdotalism. We must not be drawn 
away into the error of Baptist provincialism. We must 



3l6 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

not make of the ordinance a hard, dry commandment for 
obedience, where, in some abstract, fictitious way, the 
forgiveness of sins is promised apart from all spiritual 
light or moral good. These three mistakes — sacerdo- 
talism, provincialism, rationalism — any one of them or 
all of them, can be avoided only as we mark carefully 
the setting of baptism in the order of salvation. The 
very emphasis of the Scriptures that speak of it in con- 
nection with one's salvation must always be heard amid 
the echoes of other Scriptures that speak of other 
things in connection with one's salvation. Here, unless 
we are very careful, there will result in our study or in 
our public teaching a sad distortion of truth, always 
more of harm, both to doctrine and life, than down- 
right and outright heresy. It is an impressive lesson 
equally of mind and morals, how one can take a clear 
element of truth, state the element clearly and truth- 
fully as far as it alone goes, even combine it with other 
elements of truth in strict forms of logic, and yet in 
the end egregiously fail to see the whole truth, whether 
of scriptural revelation or ethical philosophy or physical 
science, and actually exaggerate and vitiate the partial 
truth for any practical good, simply because of this 
one-eyed way of seeing and rationalizing. 

We shall all certainly be workmen that need to be 
ashamed, if we do not rightly divide the Word of truth 
concerning baptism. A commandment of the Lord it 
is, with a specific blessing granted to those baptized, 
even the remission of sins. But there is so much else 
implied in it ; there is so much else associated with it ! 
If it is set by the Gospel in the order of one's salva- 
tion, so that it and one's salvation have their beautiful 
harmony of truth and good, this order and this salva- 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 317 

tion we shall not understand, our understanding of them 
will be blurred and vitiated, unless we always steadily 
behold the large sense, the full nature, the whole truth 
of salvation in the light of God's Word. Salvation, 
in the light of God's Word, is no single thing. It is 
not an isolated blessing for just one need of man. It 
is not a blessing revealed only for one day in the exi- 
gency of one hour. It has more than one sense. It 
has a varied meaning. It is used in a large sense, and 
in special senses, while always the special senses shine in 
the light of the unity of the large and rounded meaning. 
When the Scriptures say, "He that believeth and is 
baptized shall be saved" (Mark xvi. 16) ; or, " Which 
also after a true likeness doth now save you, even bap- 
tism " (I. Pet. iii. 21) — Scriptures in which unmistak- 
ably baptism and salvation, salvation and baptism, are 
affirmed together — our true concern then is to under- 
stand the special blessing of salvation in baptism, and 
to understand it in a reality that grows out of the large 
and rounded meaning of salvation in the revelation of 
a Gospel of grace. This decidedly, beyond a doubt, 
is the crucial point for study — the Biblical idea of sal- 
vation, so large, free, comprehensive, fruitful, in the 
knowledge of which we shall understand the sense of 
baptism for the remission of sins. 

A careful induction, therefore, of the Scriptures 
that teach salvation, we ought to make — whence salva- 
tion is, what it is, how it is, when it is ; its origin, its 
nature, its manner, its time ; its Divine side, its human 
side ; its large senses, its special senses, its relationship 
of senses, the unity of all these in the rich idea of re- 
demption in the light of God's Word. Only in this 
comprehensive way shall we be able to avoid dispro- 



3 18 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

portions and misrepresentations of the truth of the 
Gospel. Only thus shall we be able to appreciate aright 
any particular note of the revelation of redemption, in 
the present study of the sense of baptism for the remis- 
sion of sins, while also appreciating duly the whole 
truth of the revelation of God in its necessary relation 
to the realities of the life of man. 

In the first place, then, Scripture after Scripture 
reveals that the redemption of man was an eternal pur- 
pose in the mind of God. It was not an after-thought 
with Him. It was not a make-shift of His will merely 
to meet an emergency. It was not a new remedy which 
He invented to repair a damage that took Him by sur- 
prise. It was not a project of time, as men mark time ; 
it was a purpose of God, as God sees eternity. In 
these assertions there is no fancy. They are, indeed, 
not milk for babes in Christ ; they are solid food for 
full-grown Christians. Nor are they presumptuous at- 
tempts to discover the secret things that belong to the 
Lord ; they are honest, humble, glad studies of the 
things that are revealed, belonging unto us and our 
children, and making vitally for our better obedience 
to the mind and will of God. There the Scriptures 
are, though it is only in this century that their weighty 
import has begun to be widely felt by diligent students 
of the Bible. Such a growth in the knowledge of 
scriptural truth ought not to meet with surprise nor 
distrust. Robinson, of Leyden, spoke the very mind 
of a thoughtful, obedient child of God, when, in part- 
ing from his pilgrim flock, he said, "lam verily per- 
suaded that God hath yet more light to break forth 
from His Word." The Bible can not be wholly under- 
stood by one age for all faith and duty. There is a 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 319 

progressive knowledge of the revelation of God. Some 
deeper depth is measured in the Word, some truer 
point of view of the Word is found, some principle of 
interpretation of the Word is more correctly applied, 
some broader idea of the Word is discovered, and 
henceforth the Gospel is better understood, and more 
mightily prevails. The progress of humanity in a more 
spiritual civilization, under the influence of the Gospel, 
necessarily reacts into a more comprehensive knowledge 
of the truth as it is in Jesus. Bishop Butler's dictum 
has been verified again and again — " It might possibly 
be intended that events, as they come to pass, should 
open and ascertain the meaning of several parts of the 
Scriptures." 

This broadening and deepening knowledge of God's 
Word in successive ages has never been more signally 
proved than in the growing acquaintance of many minds 
with the Scriptures that teach the eternity of man's re- 
demption as purpose and will in God. There the Script- 
ures have been for many a day. In this age of travel and 
communication far and near, of international fellow- 
ship, of the poet's dream of "the parliament of man- 
kind, the federation of the world," have these Script- 
ures begun to make themselves deeply and impressively 
felt in the hearts of men. We may unmistakably 
mark them one by one, with their light of truth and 
good for humankind. Fundamentally, according to 
Paul, the very creation of man is wrapt up with his re- 
demption (Col. i. 14-17). There is a Gospel of cre- 
ation. The Saviour of the world is none other than 
the Mediator of its creation. Where our redemption 
is found, the forgiveness of our sins, there was our 
creation, in Him "who is the image of the invisible 



320 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

God, the first-born of all creation ; for in him were all 
things created." Not only "in him were all things 
created," but "through him"; not only " through him," 
but "unto him" ; and "he is before all things, and in 
him all things hold together." He was the vital source 
of all creation ; He has been the active medium of all 
creation ; He is the living unity and support of all cre- 
tion ; He is the far-off goal to which the whole creation 
moves. Fundamentally, according to John, the person 
of Jesus of Nazareth must be viewed in the light of a 
timeless existence (John i. 1-3) — the Word, who "was 
with God," who "was God," and through whom, in 
this fellowship and oneness with God, Himself uncre- 
ated, "all things were made," without whom "was 
not anything made that hath been made." Funda- 
mentally, according to the author of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews (Heb. i. 1-3), the Son, in whom God "hath 
at the end of these days spoken unto us," was He 
through whom God "made the worlds," and whom, 
" upholding all things by the word of his power," God 
"appointed heir of all things." 

These Scriptures were not idly written. They were 
not given by inspiration, to let lie in idleness in the 
hands of the children of God. They were written for 
our learning, and especially in that they were written 
for the intensely practical end of meeting ignorances 
and heresies in the Apostolic age. They are, indeed, 
regnant and dominant Scriptures, the truth of which 
must be the master light of all our seeing the revelation 
of God in the salvation of man. They yield the lofty, 
luminous idea that, in the will of God, the existence 
of man is a redemption — in purpose, in process, in 
goal, a redemption. Man's creation was never a view 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 32 I 

in God's mind apart from man's redemption. Any 
and every need of man as a creation had its fulfillment 
in the eternal purpose of God through Him who 
should be both the ground of creation and the medium 
of redemption. Sin, therefore, was not a surprise to 
God. In the mind of God there was a prevision of it; 
in the will of God there was a provision for it. Dark, 
awful, perplexing as it is, fraught with eternal perdi- 
tion for ungodly men, there was never a moment in the 
mind and will of God but there was present a super- 
abounding grace for His creatures ; and there has never 
been an hour since Adam and Eve, 

" Hand in hand, with wandering step and slow, 
Through Eden took their solitary way," 

but there has been the presence of redemption, 
whether in twilight tints of mornings heavily clouded, 
or in the noontide glory of the days of the Son of 
man. 

Again and again do the regnant and dominant 
Scriptures express this sublime truth of the salvation 
of man, and express it luminously, richly, variedly, 
according to the light of the eternal will of God, as it 
shines more and more unto the perfect day of the goal 
of redemption. These Scriptures reveal not only the 
Word, who is the source, medium, support, goal of 
creation, but they speak "of the Lamb that hath been 
slain from the foundation of the world " (Rev. xiii. 8). 
They teach a redemption from "a vain manner of life '* 
"with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish 
and without spot," and this Lamb Christ, who was 
" foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world " 
(I. Pet. i. 19, 20). They tell of a Redeemer who, 



322 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

walking among men, more than once looks off in doc- 
trine or prayer to eternity, speaking of a glory and of 
a love which He knew before the world was (John xvii. 
5, 24). . Their light shines high above all the course of 
human history, lining all the clouds of the vicissitudes 
of man, revealing not only the purpose, but the goal, 
of redemption — purpose, process and goal, a sublime 
unity of truth in the eternal will of God. What this 
eternal goal is, Paul impressively teaches, in a Script- 
ure that comfortingly reveals the end of the course 
and changes of human life for those "that love God," 
who " are called according to his purpose " (Rom. viii. 
28, 29). "For whom he foreknew, he also foreor- 
dained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that 
he might be the first-born among many brethren." 
Conformity to the image of the Son of God — here is 
the goal of the salvation of man. Or, as the same 
Apostle expresses it with varied richness of style, in 
that lofty passage, Eph. i. 3—1 1, there was a choice of 
"us in him before the foundation of the world," this 
the purpose, "that we should be holy and without 
blemish before him in love; " and this spiritual char- 
acter is represented as one with a foreordination "unto 
adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself; " 
while again, in the rich reiterations of these eternal 
purposes of God "to sum up all things in Christ," 
these holy ones, these sons, are "a heritage, having 
been foreordained according to the purpose of him 
who worketh all things after the counsel of his will." 
These are, indeed, Scriptures that can not be ig- 
nored nor slighted nor slurred without impoverishment 
of mind and life in the children of God. They were 
written by Paul for purposes of comfort to those that 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 323 

first read them, to incite their gratitude and praise. A 
Calvinistic theology may take the heart out of them, 
and a Universalist theology may wrest them dam- 
agingly to sinners, and an Arminian theology may 
touch them gingerly and let them go ; but aside from 
any and all perversions, high above all inferences and 
applications, what deeply concerns us in these studies 
is, that the Word of God sublimely reveals that the 
redemption of man was an eternal purpose with God, 
and that the goal of redemption, in the perfect day of 
that eternal light, was man's conformity to the image 
of the Son of God. This, unmistakably, instructively, 
is the large light of redemption, the master light of all 
our seeing ; and unmistakably, too, instructively, there 
is, according to the Scriptures, a profound unity of 
creation and redemption in Him unto whom all things 
were created (Col. i. 16), and whom God appointed 
heir of all things (Heb. i. 2). Repeatedly, on the Di- 
vine side and on the human side, viewed in the eternal 
counsels of God concerning man, and in the light of 
man's attaining his true destiny, are creation and re- 
demption profoundly and organically united in Him 
who is before all things, and in whom all things hold 
together (Col. i. 17). Man not only as created, but 
as redeemed by the blood of Christ, is the "new man," 
who "is being renewed unto knowledge after the im- 
age of him that created him " (Col. iii. 10). In no 
other light than the light of a purpose, process, goal 
of redemption, in the eternal will of God, can the 
Bible be read aright. In this light, and in this light 
only, as a complete induction of Scriptures, will one, 
while comprehending the meaning of the Biblical doc- 
trine of redemption, be able most fully to appreciate 



324 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

and most effectively to " speak, as it were, oracles of 
God" concerning the scriptural doctrine of baptism 
for the remission of sins. 



THE HISTORICAL FACTS AND FULLNESS OF REDEMP- 
TION. 

We have seen the large lights, and the master light, 
of the redemption of man, according to God's Word. 
Let us go on to mark some of the more varied, more 
special aspects of this truth, while we do not fail to 
catch the notes of agreement that pervade them all. 
The master light, as we have seen, is the conformity of 
man to the image of the Son of God (Rom. viii. 29). 
The goal of redemption is holy and spotless character 
(Eph. i. 4). Or, as John represents it, it is a fellow- 
ship with the life, the eternal life, which was with the 
Father, and was manifested in the Son (I. John i. 1-3), 
the likeness of the children to Him who shall at last be 
manifested in glory (I. John iii. 1-3). All that is 
meant by man's salvation from sin, seeking God, 
knowing Him, loving Him, serving Him, worshiping 
Him, living in Him, living with Him, union and com- 
munion with Him on earth, and beyond death in the 
Holy City, the New Jerusalem, is one with the idea 
of the conformity of man to the image of the Son of 
God, in the light of God's eternal will. If the Script- 
ures thus reveal God as eternally purposing the re- 
demption of man in man's creation, and we read there 
of His unceasing dealing with the sons of men, it must 
be that, whether in the large light of God's eternal 
purpose or in special lights of man's experiences, this 
presence and power of redemption will always be more 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 325 

or less felt amid them all. What are the facts of God's 
dealing with man, and what is their interpretation, 
according to His Word ? Let us, in this article, look 
chiefly at the historical side of the subject, while Paul 
gives us the interpretation thereof (Acts xvii. 16-34). 
The Apostle stands in the midst of the Areopagus. 
The intellectual Athenians are around him. They are 
idolaters. They worship idols by the thousands, and 
every one with its name. But this is not the whole 
truth. Walking their streets, and studying the objects 
of their worship, Paul " found also an altar with this 
inscription, To an Unknown God." There, in that 
fact, Paul found a door to open into the hearts of the 
Athenians for the entrance of the Gospel. He found, 
in this blind and ignorant worship of "an unknown 
god," the cry of the soul in the night for the true and 
living God. He does not hesitate so to interpret the 
hunger and needs of their hearts, and to interpret it so 
for them. "What therefore ye worship in ignorance, 
this set I forth unto you. " The wealth of the Apostle's 
sermon is overflowing in its revelation of the attitude 
of God toward the world — His purposes, His feelings, 
His ways — what He is in Himself, what He did in cre- 
ating mankind, how He has dealt with man in history, 
how He has stood, how He stands, in heart toward 
His creation, now fully revealed in the Gospel of His 
Son. God is Creator. He is Lord of Heaven and 
earth. He made the worlds and all things therein. 
He Himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things. 
But He is not a Creator whose purposes and work were 
fulfilled in creation as a hard and fast limit and end in 
itself. In creation was wrapt up a unity of far-reach- 
ing, age-long, gracious providences in and through 



326 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

the course of human lives. "God in history" is no 
idle phrase. He not only "made of one every nation 
of men," but He made them "to dwell on all the face 
of the earth." Amid all their migrations and revolu- 
tions, His will would be at work, as "having deter- 
mined their appointed seasons and the bounds of their 
habitation." And in all this creation, fulfilling itself 
in continuous providences, there was one sweet pur- 
pose of His love — "that they should seek God, if 
haply they might feel after him, and find him." They 
might fail to find Him ; yet the fault, for some cause, 
would be theirs, as Paul, with tender r^proachfulness, 
as it were, adds, " though he is not far from each one 
of us : for in him we live, and move, and have our 
being; as certain even of your own poets have said, 
For we are also his offspring." The nearness of God 
to man, God as the breath, movement, maintenance of 
man's life, physical and rational, man the offspring of 
God — here is the climax of argument why man should 
turn from idols, to serve a true and living God. The 
supreme lesson for us is that Paul, in his inspired 
theology, in the revelation of the essential relation of God 
and man, finds his true way to announce and enforce re- 
pentance in the name of a risen Lord. The wisdom 
of his speech bore its fruit. Some might mock ; others 
were left only curious; but "certain men clave unto 
him, and believed " ; and among these one of the very 
members of the Areopagus, Dionysius by name. 

It is a classic proof-text. It is the Scripture in 
whose light to begin to read the facts of history, for 
their purpose and real meaning. Man created by God, 
created by God to seek after and find God, under 
whatever difficulties, obstructions, obscurities, failures, 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 327 

while God is never far off, always near, very near, the 
very life of whatever life is in man, man His offspring 
— this is the idea which alone will illumine the annals of 
the race, and afford the reason of the existence of man. 
There is darkness, often a darkness which may be felt 
in all the land for many a day. But the wonder rather 
is that here and there, in the dwelling of a life, light 
is seen. There are waste and howling deserts, many 
a long and weary pilgrimage. It would all be a despair 
of mind and heart, if oases did not appear, in lovely 
verdure amid living waters. Nations walk in their own 
ways of idolatry and iniquity, well-nigh forgetting 
God ; and yet He left not himself without witness of 
His goodness in rains and fruitful seasons, filling the 
heathen heart with food and gladness (Acts xiv. 16, 
17). Sin is in the world, and death through sin. But 
there is a presence, and a power, too, not of man, but 
in man, making for righteousness, according as man 
receives it, and enkindling the hope of immortality 
beyond the grave. 

Let the Scriptures speak for themselves. The in- 
terpretation will take care of itself. According to them, 
in prophecy or rite or psalm or parable or precept or 
prayer, in historical character or historical event, the 
course of human life, in which evil is present, making 
it a struggle, is still a struggle, not yet an utter defeat 
in absolute despair. Even in Eden, as the tragic life 
of man begins, man begins to crush his enemy (Gen. 
iii. 15). If the serpent bruises his heel, he bruises the 
serpent's head. If bloodshed now befouls the earth, 
the punishment of the murderer has its reason that 
"in the image of God made he man" (Gen. ix. 6). 
Not even a floodtide of destruction utterly destroys 



328 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

the race. A preacher of righteousness is saved, and 
his family. In the new course of human history, men 
are seen building altars to the Lord, and are heard 
calling upon His name ; and the Lord is pleased with 
the sacrifice of animals and prayer. A special way 
of redemption begins in Jehovah's providence, as the 
sin of idolatry becomes rampant. Abraham is called 
to be the father of a great nation, that in him, how- 
ever, all the nations of the earth may be blessed. 
Henceforth two lines of Old Testament Scriptures re- 
veal a significant, a deeply impressive lesson. There 
is a chosen people for whom God has special blessings, 
special for them at first that the full fruitage might 
bless mankind ; yet the history of the chosen people is 
largely a history of idolatry and rebellion against their 
God, and His chastisement of their sins. There are 
nations and tribes and peoples and tongues not dealt 
with in like special revelations from the Lord, and yet, 
here and there among those that forget God and 
worship idols, appear one, another, still others, who 
feel after Jehovah, if haply they may find Him, nay, 
are seen to be His knowing and willing servants. 
Nobly and felicitously have they been called ' ' the 
outside saints" — among them a Melchisedec, priest of 
God Most High, receiving obeisance from Abraham 
the father of Israel ; a Jethro, worshiping the God of 
Israel after his son-in-law Moses, while mapping out 
for Moses political features of Israel's commonwealth ; 
a Job, apart from Israel, without Bible or temple or 
priestly cult, feeling after and finding God in star and 
flower, in setting suns and the living air and the mind 
of man; a pure-hearted Ruth, speaking out of the 
deep heart of a chastened human affection, "Thy God 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 32C/ 

shall be my God " ; a widow of Zarephath, a widow 
of the Bible style, cared for by the God of the widow, 
and confessing that the Word of the Lord in His 
prophet's mouth is truth ; a Cyrus, gentle in temper, 
kingly in character, the friend of Israel, a worshiper of 
the one true God, called the Lord's shepherd, of whom 
the Lord Himself mysteriously spoke, "I have sum- 
moned thee, though thou hast not known me" — "I 
will gird thee, though thou hast not known me " ; the 
Magi, following the star in the sky to find the Sun of 
their souls ; devout Greeks, modestly speaking their 
earnest desire, "Sir, we would see Jesus " ; a Roman 
captain, unknown by name, so fully and healthily be- 
lieving that Jesus wonderingly says, "Verily, I have 
not found so great faith, no, not in Israel " ; a Roman 
captain, Cornelius by name, so pious, so charitable, 
that he heard the voice of an angel, ' ' Thy prayers 
and thine alms are gone up for a memorial before 
God." 

All the while, however, in this history of man, 
struggling with sin and confessing a righteousness not 
of himself, seeking after God and finding in Him right- 
eousness and redemption, there is the other fact of 
God's seeking after man. While God is not far from 
any one of the sons of men, while in Him men live 
and move and have their being, He is purposing and 
preparing to reveal Himself to the eyes of man in a 
fullness of light and love. It will be thus truly a self- 
revelation of God. In the special way of redemption 
in Jehovah's providence, at last will appear the Re- 
deemer. Salvation being from the chosen people, the 
Jews, finally will be manifested the Saviour. This fact 
of the full revelation of God in a person must be 



330 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

grasped and steadily held, if we would comprehend 
the whole meaning of the Biblical doctrine of redemp- 
tion. The prophets speak of Him. The sacrificial 
blood of bulls and goats foreshadows Him. The 
Lord's anointed ones — teachers, priests, kings — typify 
Him. Wondrous names and titles — Prince, Shepherd, 
C®uhselor, Messiah — all, all, in all their variety of 
figure and view of His character, dignity, service, work, 
are but many-sided representations of Him who, in 
meeting fully the deep, deep need of man, is evermore 
more than man. His name shall be Jesus ; for it is He 
that will save His people from their sins. But this 
Saviour of sinners, long prophesied, appearing in the 
fullness of the times, will also have the name Immanuel, 
which is, being interpreted, God with us. 

The historical facts of redemption we can never 
know too accurately and thoroughly. We should know 
them one by one, one after another, in their simplicity 
and order, until they are literally learned by heart. It 
may well be the congratulation of a man, that from a 
babe he has known the Sacred Writings concerning 
Jesus of Nazareth. From the manger to the cross, as 
the obedient Boy of His Father's house and as the 
obedient Son in Gethsemane ; His journeyings, His 
residences, His companionships, His precepts, His 
mighty works ; how He sat in the homes of men, and 
stood on the hillsides, and laid His hands on little 
children, how He smiled and wept and prayed ; every 
note of Divine authority, and every aspect of a sinless 
character, and every sweet familiarity of a true human 
life — these, in the completeness of the historical record, 
we ought to be acquainted with by chapters and verses 
until it becomes the easiest habit of mind to recall or 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 331 

relate them. For then we have not done with thern. 
For they are indispensable for what follows. If 
•" Christ " can not be understood without " Christ cru- 
cified," it is equally true that "Christ crucified" can 
not be understood without " Christ. " If " Christ " 
is soundly preached only when " Christ crucified," 
also, is preached, it is just as true that " Christ cruci- 
fied " is soundly preached only as " Christ," too, is 
preached. But, above all, it is emphatically true that 
" Christ and Him crucified " can be soundly understood 
and soundly preached only through the interpretation 
of the Holy Spirit in Apostolic authority and doctrine. 
It was the Christ's own promise to his Apostles that 
the Spirit of truth should come in His place, to bring 
to their remembrance all that He said to them (John 
xiv. 26), to make plain any darkness of His teaching 
(xvi. 25), to bear further witness of Himself (xv. 26), 
to complete His revelation of truth, to teach them all 
things, to guide them into all the truth (xvi. 12, 13). 
There is the life of Christ, the Saviour of the world a 
man among men in familiar fashion and ways, heard, 
seen, handled. There is His death, burial, and resur- 
rection, over and over declared to have this meaning — 
" who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was 
raised for our justification " — in some profound sense, 
a sacrifice for sin, a necessity for man's redemption, 
without which man could not be saved. And there is 
this historical fulfillment of the prophetic word — " In 
that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house 
of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin 
and for uncleanness " — a fountain of salvation whose 
living waters begin to flow freely in world-wide tides, 
in the Apostolic Gospel of facts, precepts, promises, 



332 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

according to the Redeemer's own interpretations of the 
Scriptures — "That the Christ should suffer, and rise 
again from the dead the third day ; and that repentance 
and remission of sins should be preached in his name 
unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem " (Zech. 
xiii. I ; Luke xxiv. 46, 47). And there, unmistak- 
ably, undeniably, in the Apostolic preaching, as sin- 
ners hear of Him who died for their sins, and whom 
God exalted to be a Prince and Saviour, to grant re- 
pentance and remission of sins, they hear also the com- 
mandment : "Repent ye, and be baptized every one 
of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission 
of your sins" (Acts ii. 38 ; v. 31). But the Redeem- 
er's walk among men, His suffering under Pontius 
Pilate, His death on the Roman cross, His burial in 
Joseph's tomb, His resurrection the third day from the 
dead, His ascension into heaven, and the proclamation 
of salvation in His name to the whole creation, and 
the simple commandment for men, as penitent believers, 
to be baptized in His name for the remission of their 
sins, have their meaning and power, as we shall see, 
in the light of an eternal truth and order — a truth be- 
fore the world was, an order through all the life of 
man — one of the lofty Scriptures of which reads on 
this wise : " God, having of old time spoken unto the 
fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers 
manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto 
us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, 
through whom also he made the worlds ; who being 
the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his 
substance, and upholding all things by the word of his 
power, when he made purification of sins, sat down on 
the right hand of the Majesty on high " (Heb. i. 1-3). 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 333 

4. 

THE DOCTRINAL ASPECTS AND UNITY OF THE TRUTH 

OF REDEMPTION. 

The fullness of redemption as a fact historically, in 
the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, has, in 
more Scriptures than one, a presentation of its rela- 
tion to the person of Christ, as an eternal truth and 
order — a truth before the world was, an order through 
all the life of man. The passage already quoted (Heb. 
i. 1-3) is but one of the classical texts whose meaning 
speaks emphatically thus. It is by such Scriptures as 
these that the Biblical doctrine of redemption must be 
rightly read and interpreted. They are deep, but not 
obscure. They are a revelation of light to him who 
studies them with devout mind and heart. Whatever 
difficulty of text or context appears, it is very clear 
that the authors of them wrote them for intensely prac- 
tical ends. The true disciples who would read and 
ponder those living words, would be learning all the 
time to know better Him whom they had believed — 
His character in history illumined by His dignity in 
the universe, His work in the flesh interpreted by His 
prior work in creation, His death for all men justified 
by what he was to them in the purposes of God before 
the foundation of the world, His own manifestation as 
the Son of man a further revelation of what he was es- 
sentially as the Son of God, His Mediatorship thus a 
mediation of both creation and redemption, whose 
truth and order are the great light of the Bible, and of 
the life of man, rationally and morally, hitherto and 
evermore. Let us tabulate four of these classic Script- 
ures, some of them already quoted, and endeavor to 



334 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

understand aright their doctrine, aspect by aspect, as 
at last they agree in that unity of truth which reveals 
the will and way of God continually in all the real life 
of man. 

1. Heb. i. 1-3. This passage speaks of the revela- 
tion of God, first fragmentarily and variedly, in a stat- 
ute or a prophecy, by a dream or a vision. But 
through all this partialness and variedness of truth, the 
increasing purpose ran of the full and perfect revelation 
in the Son. Incomplete as was the old-time speech, it 
was a preparation for God to speak "at the end of 
these days," in the Son. Now appear the eternal 
lights of the historical manifestation. Who is this Son, 
beheld, heard, handled? "Heir of all things," 
" through whom God made the worlds." Who is He 
that died on the cross, and "sat down at the right 
hand of the Majesty on high," "when he had made 
purification of sins " ? "The effulgence " of the " glory" 
of God, "the very image of his substance," or es- 
sence, " upholding all things by the word of his power." 
In short, creation, unceasing mediation, redemption, 
heirship, all are spoken of "the Apostle and High 
Priest of our confession, even Jesus." And a clear as- 
pect of this classic Scripture is, that His having "made 
purification of sins " is so evenly set in the doctrine of 
His relation to God in substance or essence, and of 
His sustaining power under and through the universe. 

2. Col. i. 13-23. We repeat this master Scripture 
also. The notes of redemption are emphatically here. 
There appears the distinct note of the forgiveness of 
sins, and there appears, too, the prolonged note of the 
reconciliation wrought by the blood of the Cross. We 
read also of those who there in Colosse have been 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 



335 



reconciled to God in hearing this word of the truth of 
the Gospel. But a larger light, let us remember again 
and again, is revealed. It is certainly a deep lesson 
for our learning that, between the doctrine of the for- 
giveness of our sins and the doctrine of the Cross, 
where the reconciliation was wrought, is heard, in vital 
association, the doctrine that the Redeemer "is the 
image of the invisible God, the first-born of all ere. 
ation," the support of all creation, the goal of all cre- 
ation. 

3. John i. 1— 18. This classic proof-text properly 
has its repetition, now in full length. There is the 
doctrine of the plain Gospel, that "grace and truth 
came by Jesus Christ." The historical facts are firm 
and sure. But the Apostle's eye rises from earth, to 
sweep the universe of truth that shines above them all 
and through them all and in them all. It is the vision 
of Him who, becoming flesh and dwelling among men, 
was in the beginning "with God " and " was God, " 
who, in that eternal oneness and fellowship, became 
the medium of creation, the source of life, the light of 
men, "the true light, even the light which lighteth 
every man coming into the world." 

4. Rom. v. 12-21. This Scripture emphasizes more 
especially the manward aspects of redemption. It sets 
the sin of man and the grace of God over against one 
another. It brings out the history of sin and the 
history of redemption together. What sin does, and 
what redemption does, are predicated of the race, as a 
race. "Through one man sin entered into the world, 
and death through sin ; and so death passed unto all 
men, for that all sinned." The " one man," the first 
man, was Adam. But there is, as Paul elsewhere 



336 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

teaches, "the second man," "the last Adam" (I. Cor. 
xv. 45-47), of whom the first "is a figure." Man- 
kind has its representative, what He is to all, what He 
does for all, in the second Adam even more than in 
the first. The key-note is this — " Where sin abounded, 
grace did abound more exceedingly." In this light 
the contrasts are rich with good for humanity. The 
" free gift " diners from " the trespass " in every way. 
" By the trespass of the one the many died," for the 
simple reason that Adam represented the race, and in 
his sin the race sinned and died. But mark the con- 
trast : "Much more did the grace of God, and the 
gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound 
unto the many." The Apostle's tenses are purposely 
definite, according to the accurate translation of the 
Revised Version. He contrasts sin and redemption 
not only in fact, but in time. We begin to hear the 
scriptural harmonies of those sublime notes — "Who 
was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the 
world" — "the lamb that hath been slain from the 
foundation of the world." Looked at in respect of 
time, past, present and future, whatever the point of 
view, wherever the sin, much more the grace. Looked 
at in respect of facts, whatever the sin and its effects, 
much better the redemption and its influences. " If the 
judgment came of one unto condemnation," "the free 
gift came of many trespasses unto justification." "If 
by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the 
one, much more shall they that receive the abun- 
dance of grace and of the gift of righteousness 
reign in life through the one, even Jesus Christ." If 
"through one trespass the judgment came unto all 
men to condemnation ; even so through one act of 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 337 

righteousness, the free gift came unto all men to justi- 
fication of life." If "through the one man's disobe- 
dience the many were made sinners, even so through 
the obedience of the one shall the many be made 
righteous." Nay, not even the increase of sin occa- 
sioned by the stern voice of the law's obligation on 
man to do right, as it revealed to him his guilt and 
weakness, could surpass the grace of God; "but 
where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceed- 
ingly." 

If we will but be fair and true to this masterpiece 
of Paul, in an unprejudiced exegesis, then we need to 
fear neither a dark Augustinianism nor a bald Uni- 
versalism. There is no hereditary, total depravity 
here ; neither is there any fixed and fast universal sal- 
vation. Nor is it an exposition of Paul's teaching, but 
an imposition, to make these luminous ten verses pri- 
marily and chiefly a doctrine of the resurrection of the 
body, with incidental notes about a salvation from per- 
sonal sins for those that hear the Gospel and accept it. 
This classic Scripture should be interpreted justly and 
courageously for its plainest meaning without our need- 
less fears of false inferences and applications. Con- 
cerning all four of these pregnant Scriptures, indeed, 
do we need a special lesson to read and interpret them 
aright. It is the lesson to consider carefully the point 
of view from which, as regards time or stage or as- 
pect, the Scriptures speak of redemption as a proce- 
dure of God in dealing with man, and of redemption 
as an influence upon man which man receives or re- 
sists, appropriates or rejects. 

The first three of these Scriptures considered, set 
forth redemption more especially in relation to the per- 



33$ THE SPIRITUAL AND CATHOLIC 

son of the Redeemer, the facts of history viewed in 
the light of God's purposes before the world was. The 
last one sets forth redemption as a climax in history, 
the eternal purposes of God now viewed as they actu- 
ally accomplish the salvation of mankind. The Bible 
could not represent redemption as purpose, process, 
goal in any other light. Such words, at once so wide 
as regards persons, and so definite as regards what is 
done for them, must be used. The race, as such, is 
spoken of. The individual may wither under eternal 
condemnation; but humanity is potentially redeemed. 
Paul could not state the fact more clearly. He con- 
trasts Adam and Christ, what each is to the race — in 
the one, sin ; in the other, redemption : in the one, 
death ; in the other, life. What humanity lost in 
Adam, it more than regained in Christ. God views 
mankind not primarily and continuously in Adam, but 
eternally and historically in Christ. His attitude to- 
ward man is a purpose of redemption, in starlight or 
sunlight, according to the times and the seasons of His 
own authority. The absolute language of Paul in 
Rom. v. 12-21, while it must be interpreted harmo- 
niously with the Scriptures that threaten the condem- 
nation of disbelievers, that darkly picture a "lake of 
fire," and that speak ominously of the " second death," 
is still absolutely true as declaring the real, first atti- 
tude of God towards the sons of men and His actual 
dealings daily with them. The beautiful Biblical pic- 
ture of God — the outstretched hands, the brooding 
wings, the shepherd's tender voice, the father's hungry, 
far-off look — but faintly represent the heart and will of 
God in all His graces and providences at work redeem- 
ing man. What we want to know and to ponder is 



CREE-D OF BAPTISM. 339 

that, in the light of these first three Scriptures, re- 
demption is taught as an eternal purpose with God as 
seen in the relation of Christ to the creation of man, 
and that, in the light of the fourth Scripture, this re- 
demption is declared to be a historical fact, an assur- 
ance, an accomplishment, in whose meaning the whole 
Bible is to be read, according to whose ODwer the will 
of God is to be viewed as ceaselessly working, under 
whose influence all the reason and good of human life 
are to be in f ^roreted and realized. Redemption is not 
merely a provision of God's grace, which God offers to 
men while He sits passively back and waits to see 
whether they will accept or reject it. It is the pur- 
pose according to which God has ever looked toward 
man. It is the light in which He looks upon man. It 
is the love which He feels for man. It is the truth in 
which He works for man and in man. It is His pur- 
pose, light, love, truth, now fully revealed in the Gos- 
pel of Jesus Christ, ever affecting man, and actually 
effective in man, a savor of life unto life or of death 
unto death, as man receives or resists it, appropriates 
or rejects it. 

Such is the Biblical doctrine of redemption in these 
notable Scriptures, indisputably the classic Scriptures 
of the subject. An eternal purpose, process, goal 
with God, a Gospel fact and word in time — these as 
making a unity of truth, how true and real they are in 
human life in countless rich relations, is amply proved 
in many another Scripture. It is only in the light of 
such a truth that many other Scriptures can be under- 
stood. Let us consider some of them. 

I. There are, first of all, the Scriptures that speak 
of this redemption as finished in the death of the Son 



340 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

of God on the Cross. The death of Christ for sin is 
represented in many a light in the Bible — "a redemp- 
tion," "a ransom," "a propitiation," "a sacrifice," 
" a reconciliation." There need be no surprise that 
devout men have honestly differed in their understand- 
ing and interpretation of these varied, healthful words 
of the Scriptures. But, with all difference of views on 
what the old version calls "the atonement," there 
ought to be a sweet tolerance, one for the other, 
among any who believe and teach that, in some pro- 
found sense, the death of the Son of God was a neces- 
sity in order to the forgiveness of sins — -that "apart 
from shedding of blood there is no remission." This 
tolerance should be all the easier in this age, when, 
undoubtedly, more light is breaking forth from God's 
Word, showing the eternal relation of God's Son to 
humanity. In that view, the more we read and study, 
we shall see that the death of Christ for sin was not a 
fiction nor an expedient of Divine mercy meant to 
confound all reason. His birth had His death in view. 
Bethlehem led to Calvary. The incarnation and the 
reconciliation are to be studied together. The varied 
aspects of the Cross have their place in the person of 
Christ as essentially related to God and man ; and the 
suffering of death, viewed as ransom or propitiation or 
sacrifice or reconciliation, has its meaning and power 
in the perfect character and perfect obedience of Him 
who was at once Son of God and Son of man. The 
Scriptures declare Jesus's tasting of death for every 
man to be an eternal propriety. It was because of a 
purpose and goal of God in creation that the Author 
of salvation must have His perfection through suffer- 
ings. In the perfection of His obedience in suffering 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 341 

He became "unto all that obey him the author of 
eternal salvation '' (Heb. ii. 9, 10; v. 8, 9). 

2. There are the Scriptures that represent this rec- 
onciliation, thus perfected in the death of Christ, as 
looking both backward and forward. In it shines the 
"righteousness" of God "because of the passing 
over of the sins done aforetime, " in His forbearance 
(Rom. iii. 25). In it is seen the imperfection of Jew- 
ish altars of bloody sacrifices, whose lack and need are 
fulfilled by the perfect sacrifice of the Son of God 
(Heb. x. 1— 1 8). In it appears at last the "glorious 
church, not having spot or wrinkle," "holy and with- 
out blemish (Eph. v. 25-27). 

3. There are the Scriptures that uniquely set forth 
redemption and reconciliation as the eternal purpose 
of God for the Gentiles, now fulfilled historically in 
their salvation (Eph. iii. 1— 1 3). It was a "mystery," 
"hid in God who created all things," " the eternal 
purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord," 
which " hath now been revealed unto his holy apostles 
and prophets in the Spirit; to wit, that the Gentiles," 
not "should be," as translated in the old version, but 
as in the Revised Version, "are fellow-heirs, and 
fellow-members of the body, and fellow-partakers of 
the promise of Christ Jesus through the Gospel." It 
is the very historical crisis of their redemption and 
reconciliation, as it demonstrated the eternal purposes 
of God's love, which fires Paul in his ministry to the 
Gentiles. "The love of Christ constraineth us, " he 
cries; "because we thus judge that one died for all, 
therefore all died." To Paul, the death of Christ po- 
tentiated and expressed the death of every man to sin. 
In that death for all was the redemption from sin 



34 2 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

for all, not fictional nor figurative, but a real potency 
of salvation, if each one would appropriate it as a life 
— "that they which live should no longer live unto 
themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and 
rose again." What made this reconciliation a reality 
for Paul's ministry, so that he could call it "the min- 
istry of reconciliation," was that " God was in Christ 
reconciling the world unto himself" — the reconciliation 
just that real as a process on God's part, one proof of 
which was in God's ' ' not reckoning unto them their 
trespasses" (II. Cor. v. 14-19). 

4. There are the Scriptures, singularly instructive 
and impressive, that declare or imply that man is 
essentially a rational and moral being, and is thus a 
subject of revelation and redemption. The wrath of 
God against all ungodliness and unrighteousness is a 
possibility of revelation, because "that which may be 
known of God is manifest in them," " his everlasting 
power and divinity," all along from the dawn of 
creation, being perceived by men in the frame-work of 
things in which they live (Rom. i. 18-20). This 
ability of man to read both the starry heavens above 
and the moral law within him is impressively taught in 
the Scriptures. It is an ability notwithstanding sin, 
not, indeed, denying his sin nor weakness nor guilt, 
implying these, but certainly implying in itself the 
perception of right and good, the consent to these, the 
obligation to do them even though the effort fall short 
of perfection through the evil that with man is ever 
present. In one light, men are represented as "by 
nature children of wrath " (Eph. ii. 3). In another 
light, some of them are represented as doing ' ' by 
nature " what is right, the law of God being written in 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 343 

their hearts, where conscience sits as judge (Rom. ii. 
14-16). But this ability of moral perception as a native 
force with every man, has its source deeper than the 
single eye of any man. It is from Him whom John 
declares to be "the true light, even the light which 
lighteth every man coming into the world '' (John i. 9). 
The fact of moral aspiration and struggle, which Paul 
states as true of Gentiles between his dread picture of 
the Gentile world and the Jewish people as both con- 
demned, and which causes them to be accounted 
righteous before God, has its reason deeper than the 
hunger and the effort. This relative doing of the law, 
amid weaknesses and failures, amid approvals and dis- 
approvals of conscience, must, according to Paul's 
sublime teaching, be viewed in the light of the very 
Gospel of Jesus Christ which the Apostle was carrying 
to the Gentile world. God's principles of judgment, 
searching the secrets of men, would show these Gen- 
tiles as righteous in Him who, though unknown to 
them, had been the light and strength of their lives, 
unto their salvation. 

5. There are the Scriptures which so variedly and 
beautifully express the truth of redemption, what is eter- 
nal with God, with reference to time as man views days 
and years — now past, then present, again future. The 
inspired heart of Zacharias could sing at the birth of 
John the Baptist, " Blessed be the Lord, the God of 
Israel ; for he hath visited and wrought redemption for 
his people " (Luke i. 68, 69), a redemption sung of as 
veritably accomplished. The inspired mind of Paul 
could write of the Holy Spirit "as an earnest of our 
inheritance, unto the redemption of God's own posses- 
sion " (Eph. i. 14), a redemption toward which the life 



344 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

in the Spirit was still moving as a goal. Again and 
again is God described as "our Saviour." The phrase 
has its reason truly in that He is "the Saviour of all 
men, specially of those that believe " (I. Tim. iv. 10). 
The specialty of the believer's salvation is his own ap- 
propriating, and not rejecting, the salvation which all 
flesh shall see (Luke iii. 6), which the grace of God 
brings to all men (Tit. ii, 1 1), which is the undeniable 
proof of God's look and attitude of kindness and love 
toward man (Tit. iii. 4). We read of the world-wide 
multitude of men as "the children of God scattered 
abroad " (John xi. 52) ; while we read also that to "as 
many as received him, to them gave he the right to 
become the children of God, even to them that believe 
on his name " (John i. 12). It is the simple, deep truth 
that every man is the child of God, both by his crea- 
tion and redemption in. Christ, while still every man is 
born of God, as he receives this right of sonship by 
faith in Christ, and becomes more and more a renewed, 
spiritual man, "renewed unto knowledge after the 
image of him that created him " (Col. iii. 10). Christ 
declares of himself that He is the good shepherd, who 
lays down his life for the sheep ; and He looks beyond 
the sheep there about Him, and sees other sheep afar 
off whom He must also bring, that all may become one 
flock, one shepherd (John x. 15, 16). 

Such, according to the Scriptures, is the truth of 
redemption — a redemption that is a purpose, process, 
goal with God eternally ; a grace, a gift, a reality of 
light and love, the will of God ever working for man 
and in man, in the mediation of His Son, whether by 
law of statute or conscience, or by promise of Gospel. 
It is a truth which, when fully realized in all its reve- 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 345 

lation of grace and love, reveals all the more vividly 
the responsibility of man. As God loves the world, 
and sends His Son not to judge the world, but to save 
it, we must learn to understand this mission of redemp- 
tion consistently with the fact immediately added — the 
fact of salvation or the fact of condemnation becoming 
the experience of man, in prospect of eternal life or in 
danger of the second death — "He that believeth on 
him is not judged : he that believeth not hath been 
judged already, because he hath not believed on the 
name of the only begotten Son of God " (John iii. 16- 
18). We must learn to appreciate this eternal, unceas- 
ing work of redemption for man and in man, "to ac- 
count that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation " 
(II. Pet. iii. 15), while in the history of men judgment 
has begun — " He that believeth on the Son hath eternal 
life ; but he that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life, 
but the wrath of God abideth on him " (John iii. 36). 
This doctrine of redemption, a truth eternal with 
God, an order through all the life of man, magnifying 
the love of God, and intensifying the responsibility of 
man, we shall now see fully proved in the Apostolic 
ministry of the Gospel, as, in their preaching of re- 
demption, appears the beautiful and helpful sense in 
which they preached baptism for the remission of sins. 

5. 

THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY OF BAPTISM, IN THE APOS- 
TOLIC MINISTRY OF THE GOSPEL. 

The Apostolic ministry of the Gospel conveys the 
fullness of the blessing of Christ. The revelation of 
the grace of God to the holy apostles and prophets in 
the Spirit, was the climax of revelation. The author- 



346 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

ity of the Lord Jesus Christ is proclaimed fully and 
finally in the Apostolic Gospel. In the Book of the 
Acts, we plainly see all sorts and conditions of men walk- 
ing in the way of salvation, without a doubt, rejoicing in 
the forgiveness of sins. The steps of salvation, as all 
may easily understand them, are distinctly announced, 
as a Peter preaches in Jerusalem, or a Philip in Sama- 
ria, or a Paul in Rome. And in the Apostolic Gospel 
appears, beyond all question, the doctrine of redemp- 
tion's a truth eternal with God, and an order through all 
the life of man. Every note of the Apostolic ministry 
of the Word teaches, explicitly or implicitly, this truth 
as purpose, process, goal with God, affecting men always 
and everywhere, and intensifying their responsibility 
in the noontide sunlight of the Gospel of grace and 
glory. Three facts abundantly prove and illustrate 
this affirmation. It is in such an Apostolic ministry of 
the Gospel, thus proved and illustrated, that the Apos- 
tolic ministry of baptism for the remission of sins, in 
all its rational and helpful meaning, will duly and 
signally appear. 

I. There is the strong, significant proof that salva- 
tion was preached first to the Jews (Rom. i. 16). It be- 
came a necessity of historical order, inasmuch as sal- 
vation was from the Jews (John iv. 22). Every Jew 
who heard the Apostles preach, heard them appeal to 
the past. Redemption was not the manufacture of a 
day. Historically viewed, it was a growth, first the 
blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. 
Abraham rejoiced that he should see Christ's day, and 
was glad (John viii. 56). Prophets and heroes died "in 
faith, not having received the promises, but having 
seen them and greeted them from afar ■' (Heb. xi. 13). 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 347 

In the free course of the Gospel throughout the world, 
while Jews were ignorantly zealous for God, and failed 
to subject themselves to the righteousness of God, over 
them in their disobedience could Paul vicariously pray, 
could he patriotically write, "whose is the adoption, 
and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of 
the law, and the service of God, and the promises " 
(Rom. ix. 1-5). The appeal was to other ages, in 
which redemption was preparing. Out of the prepar- 
ation of redemption came the exhortation to the 
obedience of faith, in the full revelation of redemption 
(Rom. xvi. 23-27). So was the Gospel preached to 
the Jews, in memory of redemption, in view of the 
purposes and promises of God. The Jews were sin- 
ners. Jew and Gentile alike, it should be proved, had 
sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. iii. 
19-26), and both needed the redemption that is in 
Christ Jesus. The first full and authoritative Gospel 
sermons were preached to Jews who had crucified the 
Son of God. The fact of their henious sin burnt itself 
all the more hotly into their hearts in the light of 
prophecy fulfilled, in view of the gracious will of God 
accomplished, as they saw Jesus exalted to be "a 
Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, 
and remission of sins" (Acts v. 31). To the Jews, 
from whom came salvation ; to the Jews, who could 
truly say, " Our fathers' God " ; to the Jews, of whom 
Jehovah had said over and over, " My people Israel " ; 
to the Jews, who, though "a disobedient and gainsay- 
ing people," are still " his people which he foreknew," 
who, "as touching the election," "are beloved for the 
fathers' sake," whom, according to Paul's striking figure, 
God will graft in again into their own good olive tree, 



34$ THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

where once they were the natural branches, appropri- 
ately belonging (Rom. xi.) ; to the Jews then in Jerusa- 
lem, " devout men from every nation under heaven" 
(Acts ii. 5), whom Peter addresses as "the sons of the 
prophets, and of the covenant which God made with 
your fathers" (Acts iii. 25), unto whom God first 
sent His Servant " to bless you, in turning away every 
one of you from your iniquities " (Acts iii. 26) ; to the 
Jews who could remember redemption as a process of 
the past, upon whose vision redemption was rising as 
the fullness of blessing in the present, believing in their 
fathers' God, now convinced that Jesus of Nazareth 
was the Christ of their prophets, did Peter proclaim, 
in answer to the cry of their guilty hearts: "Repent 
ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of 
Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins " (Acts 

ii- 37, 38). 

2. There is the fact, no less strong and signifi- 
cant, that salvation advanced into the Gentile world 
through those that were nearest to the Jews, as regards 
theological belief and spiritual receptivity. "In Jeru- 
salem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the 
uttermost part of the earth " — such was the course of 
the Gospel. The liberal-minded Philip "went down 
to the city of Samaria and proclaimed unto them the 
Christ, " and "when they believed Philip preaching 
good tidings concerning the kingdom of God and the 
name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men 
and women v (Acts viii. 5, 12). The reception of the 
Apostolic Gospel had already begun before Philip's 
day, when many, many of the Samaritans saw and 
heard Jesus in person, and confessed a faith strangely 
intelligent and liberal — " We know that this is indeed 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 349 

the Saviour of the world " (John iv. 39-42). We read 
of a Gentile from far-off Ethiopia, believing in the 
God of Israel, journeying to Jerusalem to worship God, 
absorbed in the study of God's Word — him also, hun- 
gering and thirsting after righteousness, ripe for the 
Gospel of his salvation, hearing it from Philip's lips, 
and eagerly asking for baptism (Acts viii. 26-39). The 
case of Cornelius, another Gentile, is impressively con- 
spicuous. He is "a devout man, and one that feared 
God with all his house, who gave much alms to the 
people, and prayed to God alway " (Acts x., xi.). It 
was while at prayer that the message of the angel came 
to him to send for Peter, ' ' who shall tell thee words 
whereby thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house. " 
But a vision had come also to Peter in prayer, and a 
strange word of interpretation — " What God hath 
cleansed, make not thou common " — whose full mean- 
ing dawned upon him, as he stood in the presence of 
the man of prayers and alms, who was so ready to 
hear and obey the Lord. Of Cornelius, so ready to 
hear of salvation, could a Peter at last say, " Of a truth 
I perceive that God is no respecter of persons : but in 
every nation he that feareth him, and worketh right- 
eousness, is acceptable to him." The special descent 
of the Holy Spirit on these Gentile hearers of the 
Word, in the gift of tongues, was the climax of con- 
viction for Peter. It was the demonstration, for eye 
and ear, of the sanctification of the Spirit in which 
God had from the beginning chosen the Gentiles unto 
salvation (II. Thess. ii. 13). What more could Peter 
say but immediately to command Cornelius and his ex- 
ultant household to be baptized in the name of the 
Lord Jesus ? And thus the Apostolic ministry contin- 



350 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

ually runs. In the synagogue first, there to meet the 
Jews ; through them and beyond them, whether obedi- 
ent or disobedient to the Word, to find the Gentiles 
nearest to them — "of the devout Greeks a great mul- 
titude, and of the chief women not a few " (Acts xvii. 
4) — so does Paul, for instance, the Apostle to the 
Gentiles, win his way into the Gentile world, looking 
out for spiritual hunger and budding faith. The history 
of the preaching of redemption fairly reaches the 
sublime where, as the footsteps of Paul are guided by 
the Spirit at last to Troas, facing idolatrous Europe, he 
sees in the night a vision, a Macedonian "standing be- 
seeching him and saying, Come over into Macedonia 
and help us." The great, sad need of the great 
European world, in all its sin and ignorance, is touch- 
ingly pictured as the conscious cry of one man. The 
very vision could be possible and true only as the 
presence of God in His creation, working toward its 
redemption, should evoke the sense of need, evoking 
it first so sublimely in ideal, as it should soon now be 
really aroused under the actual Gospel call. Such 
sights were not only Paul's guidance, but in them he 
had to find his strength and hope, as, in preaching the 
Gospel amid storms of trial, for instance in Corinth, 
preaching the Divine provision of redemption, he 
rested in the assurance of the Divine possession already 
of a multitude of the redeemed — "Be not afraid, but 
speak . . . for I have much people in this city" 
(Acts xviii. 9, 10). 

3. There is the luminous teaching of the Apostolic 
Word, as well as of Christ Himself, concerning the re- 
lation of children to the redemption that is in Him. 
The facts, the precepts, the promises of this relation, 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 35 I 

the whole trend of the Bible, each special Scripture, 
concerning childhood, as such, all shine distinctly in 
the light of the eternal relation of the Son of God to 
humanity in creation and redemption. According to 
the Old Testament, "children are an heritage of the 
Lord; and the fruit of the womb is his reward" (Ps. 
cxxvii. 3). The very purposes of God in fatherhood 
and motherhood for the propagation of the race, are 
declared to be preeminently spiritual: "And did he 
not make one, although he had the residue of the spirit ? 
And wherefore one ? He sought a godly seed " (Mai. 
ii. 15). The Old Testament notes are frequent and 
emphatic that children shall be diligently taught the 
law of the Lord (Deut. vi. 6, 7), and that a child can 
be trained in the right way for manhood's estate (Prov. 
xxii. 6). As the precept is given, "Remember now 
thy Creator in the days of thy youth" (Ecc. xii. 1), 
the glad confession is elsewhere heard, "Thou art my 
trust from my youth " (Ps. lxxi. 5). A Samuel, a David, 
a Josiah, are seen as children serving Jehovah, and re- 
ceiving His abundant blessing. The New Testament 
loses nothing of this truth of the moral abilities and 
spiritual capacities of childhood. It here reappears 
with intenser light and emphasis. Christ finds in 
childhood spiritual traits that must test the conversion of 
men (Matt, xviii.). A little child, in its trust, its docility, 
its humility, may be received in His name. The little 
ones may believe on Him. Each little one has its guard- 
ian angel. It is not the will of God that one of these 
little ones should perish. On children, yea, on babes, 
He places His hands in blessings, declaring, "Of such 
is the kingdom of God." The Apostolic Word espe- 
cially views them in this vital relation to redemption, as 



352 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

the duty of the parent, the duty of the child, are faith- 
fully taught. The parent is to "nurture" the child 
"in the chastening and admonition of the Lord" ; and 
children are to obey their parents "in the Lord" 
(Eph. vi. 1-4). The faith of father and mother, the 
faith of even one of them, is a spiritual circle, in which 
the child dwells in holy relationship and under sancti- 
fying influences, where the life of the child has already 
received holiness in the germ (I. Cor. vii. 14). The 
conspicuous New Testament example of this luminous 
aspect of the truth of redemption, is Timothy. Born 
a Jew, " from a babe " knowing "the sacred writings, " 
taught to love God as he was taught to speak the truth 
and do right, taught to obey his parents as he was 
taught to believe in the Messiah to come, morality and 
religion a unity of faith and duty as fast as he could 
learn them, his salvation became to him a clear truth 
and a full possession, in his very boyhood, "through 
faith which is in Christ Jesus " (II. Tim. iii. 14-17). 
Beautiful, indeed, is the Biblical truth of redemption 
in its varied, vital bearings on childhood ; and the 
charm of its beauty is distinctly felt as we hear the 
children singing in the temple, ' ' Hosanna to the Son 
of David" (Matt. xxi. 15), or kneeling, with wonder- 
ing little hearts, along with fathers and mothers on the 
seashore around the good Apostle Paul, in prayer 
(Acts xxi. 5, 6). 

Here, therefore, we may begin to understand the 
rational and helpful sense in which baptism is for the 
remission of sins. It is a real sense, fraught with good 
for every one who hears the Gospel of his salvation. 
It shines in all this large light of the truth of redemp- 
tion, whose rich aspects we have been endeavoring to 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 353 

appreciate. It becomes specifically clear in the Apostolic 
ministry of the Gospel, according to the Book of the Acts. 

The negative mistakes about the design of baptism 
easily melt away in the clear light of the truth of re. 
demption. 

I. Baptism is not for the remission of sins, in the 
sense of a magical, sacerdotal institution. It does not 
convey the grace of God for the first time to him who 
comes in contact with the water, conveying it as an 
efficacy in priestly hands, to remove sin and impart a 
new nature. "Baptismal regeneration," as a dogma, 
was an outgrowth of a falsity of redemption. It im- 
plied that humanity was hereditarily and totally corrupt. 
It taught that every man was born wholly in sin by 
descent from Adam, and that in no sense was there re- 
demption for him except in baptism, where and when 
only he was born again of the Spirit. It saw no re- 
demption for even unbaptized infants. The unscript- 
urat 1 institution of infant baptism found in this dogma, 
as seen to-day in certain baptismal services, its unscript- 
ural proof and support. The dogma of baptismal re- 
generation is possible only as humanity is viewed uni- 
versally lost in Adam, apart altogether from any re- 
demption in Christ, except as salvation is conveyed to 
each sinner through the Church in the ministrations 
and manipulations of duly designated representatives. 
Salvation, in this view, is strictly and restrictedly sac- 
erdotal, as it necessarily becomes whenever the grace 
of God and the gift of grace are predicated only of 
some one specific time or some one specific act. Bap- 
tismal regeneration is a huge blunder at understanding 
the sense in which baptism is really for the remission 
of sins. 



354 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

2. Baptism is not for the remission of sins, in the 
sense of a mechanical, arbitrary appointment of the 
Divine will. This theory of the design of baptism, in 
its exact notion, is a complete reaction from the dogma 
of baptismal regeneration. It holds to baptism for the 
remission of sins. It endeavors to explain and justify 
the sense in which baptism is for the remission of sins. 
It has again and again emphatically repudiated baptis- 
mal regeneration. It denies any sacramental efficacy in 
the water. It rejects any necessity of sacerdotal hands. 
It preaches baptism for the remission of sins only to 
penitent believers. It insists on the need of a "change 
of heart '' in the sinner before he is baptized. It speaks 
about faith as changing the heart from a love of sin to 
a love of holiness, and repentance as expressing the 
purpose of the mind to break off sins by righteous- 
ness, and then, where the sinner has this change of 
mind and heart, it exhorts him to be baptized in order 
to the remission of his sins. 

The real truth that lies in this theory, especially for 
its practical uses, as we shall see, is altogether indepen- 
dent of the rationalizings of pulpit and press by which 
the theory, honestly though mistakenly, has been 
argued and defended. The mistakes all grow out of 
the bald notion that baptism is an arbitrary appoint- 
ment of the Divine will. Starting with this notion, 
the theory has affirmed that there is salvation for no 
one in any sense until he is baptized. Shrinking often 
from this fell conclusion of its logic, it splits a hair of 
difference, and proceeds to affirm that there is no 
promise of salvation to responsible hearers of the 
Gospel until they are baptized. Straightforwardly 
questioned concerning the status of a penitent believer 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 355 

stricken in death before baptism, it professes simply 
ignorance, professedly unable to give any assurance of 
salvation in the light of God's Word. Straightfor- 
wardly questioned concerning the condition of a pious 
man unbaptized — unbaptized because of an intellectual 
mistake in the action of baptism, a mistake of the head, 
not of the heart — it firmly, sometimes grimly, teaches 
that for him, too, there is no scriptural assurance of 
salvation whatever until he is baptized. Penitent be- 
lievers dying unbaptized, and devout believers living 
unbaptized, it turns over to what it calls " the uncove- 
nanted mercies of God." The landing-place of its 
logic here seems to be a realm of blank agnosticism, 
where it contentedly dwells ; although, as is the case 
with every agnosticism of mind and morals, haunted 
by enough of truth finally to confute and dissolve it, 
this conclusion apparently forgets that the very phrase, 
" uncovenanted mercies of God, " necessarily involv- 
ing a real truth for man's good to allow any affirmation 
at all, carries inevitably the dissolution of its own 
merciless rationalism. 

We need not be further surprised that this theory 
of baptism, as an arbitrary appointment of the Divine 
will, like all theories of thought and life where really 
entertained, works its way sinuously to dread practical 
results. Under its dire influence, within the year, the 
elders of a church declined to visit and pray for a dying 
man, because when he could have been baptized in 
health and strength, he had not. An extreme instance, 
we are all, surely, glad to believe. Let us rejoice, 
too, that it was an extreme instance, never to be re- 
peated, when it was argued in a religious journal of the 
nineteeth century, whether a child should be taught to 



356 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

pray before it is old enough to be baptized. All these 
mistakes, mistakes of theory issuing subtly in mistakes 
of practice — mistakes about penitent believers too 
near death to be baptized, about pious believers ignor- 
antly living unbaptized, about children not responsible 
enough for a scriptural baptism — necessarily flow from 
the theory of baptism as an arbitrary appointment of 
the Divine will. The gist of this error is that in bap- 
tism, and at baptism only, does the penitent believer 
for the first time meet the promise of the redemption 
that is in Christ, here only for the first time the assur- 
ance of the forgiveness of sins, here only for the first 
time the pledge of the grace of God, here only for the 
first time the guaranty of the benefits of the atonement, 
here only for the first time the warrant of peace from 
sin or the hope of eternal life. The true, scriptural 
sense of baptism for the remission of sins, a sense 
practical and helpful, explaining the constant, urgent 
Apostolic word to penitent believers, "Be baptized," 
and justifying the constant, prompt obedience of peni- 
tent believers in baptism, will be found to harmonize 
with all the larger lights and varied aspects'of the truth 
of redemption which we have been patiently con- 
sidering. 



6. 

THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY OF BAPTISM, IN THE APOS- 
TOLIC MINISTRY OF THE GOSPEL. 

Scripturally, therefore, in the light of the doctrine 
of redemption, baptism is for the remission of sins. 

I. In the sense of representation. It is a form, but it 
represents a reality of God and man. It is a material 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 357 

element, but it represents a spiritual presence. It is a 
bodily action, but it represents a spiritual will. It is 
absurd to classify it with the washings of the Jewish 
law, "carnal ordinances imposed until a time of re- 
formation " (Heb. ix. 10). It is ignorance to call it 
"a mere outward rite," or "only an external bodily 
act," and to put it on the plane with ceremonies of hu- 
man organizations. Baptism, belonging to the Gospel 
of truth and grace, is a spiritual institution, represent- 
ing a spiritual reality of God and man, or it is worse 
even than a heathen fetich. But, belonging to a spir- 
itual dispensation, it is a spiritual institution represent- 
atively, as it both beautifully and helpfully pictures to 
a penitent believer his salvation in the name of Christ. 
"And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, 
and wash away thy sins, calling on his name " (Acts 
xxii. 16). So Saul, penitent and praying, hears Ana* 
nibs's urgent exhortation. The water of his baptism 
would appropriately represent the washing away of his 
sins in the blood of Jesus Christ. So, too, in that im- 
pressive Scripture, Rom. vi. 1-5, Paul teaches that 
baptism is a symbol of the death and resurrection of 
Christ. To be "baptized into Christ" is to be "bap- 
tized into his death." The baptism involves a burial, 
a burial "with him through baptism into death," and 
to this end, "like as Christ was raised from the dead 
through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk 
in newness of life." In both of these Scriptures, 
where baptism is a representation of salvation — in the 
first, the material element furnishing the figure ; in 
the second, the bodily action becoming the symbol — 
the representation is not merely a poetic figure nor an 
ornamental symbol. It is the representation of salva- 



358 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

tion in reality — the representation of a real cleansing 
from sin, the representation of a real death to sin and 
of a real resurrection to a new life — this spiritual real- 
ness alone giving sense and propriety to baptism in its 
element and action. There is a real presence and 
power of God in baptism : there is a real spiritual ex- 
perience of man in baptism. " Having cleansed it by 
the washing of water with the word " (Eph. v. 26), 
says Paul again, making baptism a picture of purifica- 
tion, and so representing it because something more 
than water is there — the very word of God in all its 
spirit and life being there. "Having been buried 
with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with 
him through faith in the working of God, who raised 
him from the dead" (Col. ii. 12), says the Apostle 
again, making baptism a figure of burial and resurrec- 
tion, and so representing it because something more 
than bodily action is there — the very energy of God, 
in which the baptized man trusts, being there. 

2. In the sense of confirmation. It is a form, a ma- 
terial element, a bodily action, but it is the confirma- 
tion of the forgiveness of sins. The records of bap- 
tisms in the New Testament would be absurd unless, 
while narrating the regularity, the promptness, the 
eagerness of the baptisms, they prove directly and in- 
directly that baptism was to a penitent believer a con- 
firmation of salvation. The Scriptures here cany such 
an inevitable conviction to the simple reader. It is the 
wholesale blame of the overwhelming majority of Prot- 
estant revivals that in none of them does one hear 
the like of the New Testament language, not a syllable, 
not a hint, but a strange silence, as regards the char- 
acteristic Apostolic commandments and practices of 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 359 

baptism. Does Peter command penitent believers to 
be baptized unto the remission of their sins? "They 
then that received his word were baptized " (Acts ii. 
41). Does Philip go down to Samaria, and preach 
Christ to the Samaritans? "When they believed 
Philip preached good tidings concerning the kingdom of 
God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, 
both men and women " (Acts viii. 12). Does the same 
evangelist come suddenly on a religious pilgrim, and 
preach to him Jesus ? As he hears the Gospel, believ- 
ing it, the sight of water evokes an eager request: 
' * Behold, water ; what doth hinder me to be baptized ? " 
(Acts viii. 36). Of every conversion, indeed, in the 
Apostolic age, could this Scripture be truthfully writ* 
ten : " And many of the Corinthians hearing believed, 
and were baptized" (Acts xviii. 8). In view of the 
word of the Lord Jesus (Mark xvi. 16), of the com- 
mandment of Peter (Acts ii. 38), of the exhortation 
of Ananias (Acts xxii. 16), all coupling baptism and 
salvation, and in view of the universally ready, glad 
obedience of penitent believers in baptism, it unmis- 
takably appears as a real confirmation of a real salva- 
tion in a real experience of their lives. 

3. In the sense of association. It is a form, a mate- 
rial element, a bodily action, but in it is the real associa- 
tion of the salvation of one with the salvation of oth- 
ers, a real association of one in his salvation with 
others in their salvation, as all together have a real 
union and communion with God. So reads the great 
commission, ft Make disciples of all the nations," the 
discipleship, in its making, realizing in baptism the 
highest fellowship of which man can be capable — 
"baptizing them into the name of the Father and of 



360 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

the Son and of the Holy Spirit " (Matt, xxviii. 19). 
Your or my salvation is not in selfish isolation. It is 
organic, with one another, and through one another. 
We Gentiles, verily, "are fellow-heirs, and fellow- 
members of the body, and fellow-partakers of the 
promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel" (Eph. iii. 
6). In the true and profound sense, our salvation is in 
"the Church," which is "the body" of Christ, "the 
fullness of him that filleth all in all" (Eph. i. 23). It 
is, of course, according to the sound, Protestant idea 
and against the Roman Catholic notion, our relation to 
Christ that determines our relation to the Church, not 
our relation to the Church that determines our relation 
to Christ ; but it would be more accurately scriptural 
to say that, in our relation to Christ, is determined 
necessarily our relation to the Church. The salvation 
in Christ is a fellowship of salvation, and it is a fellow- 
ship of salvation according as He is " himself the Sav- 
iour of the body " (Eph. v. 23). This principle of 
association is impressively stated by Paul as regards 
baptism. To be baptized into the name of the Father 
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, to be baptized 
into Jesus Christ, to be baptized into His death, to be 
baptized into His name, carries in it an association of 
the blessings of salvation. " For in one Spirit," says 
Paul impressively, giving the necessary reason of the 
organic relation of the redeemed, and stating first the 
vital, spiritual element which enveloped them when 
baptized, " For in one Spirit were we all baptized into 
one -body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or 
free; and were all made to drink of one Spirit" (I. 
Cor. xii. 12, 13). Salvation thus viewed as a blessing 
organically, in a body, in a Church, in a kingdom, is 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 361 

taught by our Lord in His startling words to Nicode- 
mus. The note of a spiritual salvation He unmistaka- 
bly gives along with the note of a baptism in water, 
which asociates the salvation of one with the salvation 
of others in the kingdom of God — " Except a man be 
born of water and the Spirit, he can not enter the king- 
dom of God" (John iii. 5). It is of those who re- 
ceived the word of Peter, and were baptized, that the 
fact is immediately narrated : "And there were added 
unto them in that day about three thousand souls " 
(Acts ii. 41); and this significant predicate, "added 
unto them," has the light of its vital meaning a little 
further on in the verse, "And the Lord added to them," 
or "together," "day by day those that were being 
saved" (Acts ii. 47). The association of penitent be- 
lievers by baptism was in a process of salvation. 

4. In the sense of consummation. According to the 
Apostolic ministry, it was penitent believers that were 
baptized. It was not unconscious infants. It was not 
unawakened sinners. Baptism was not the first and 
only step in the way of salvation. Again and again, 
in varied ways, are hearing, faith, repentance, confes- 
sion, mentioned as facts in the way of salvation. In 
no one aspect is salvation moving to a consummation 
more strikingly set forth than in the doctrine of it as a 
conversion, especially now in the accurate renderings 
of the Revised Version. The Scriptures speak of 
turning, and becoming as little children (Matt, xviii. 
3), of perceiving with the eyes, hearing with the ears, 
understanding with the heart, and turning again to be 
healed (Matt. xiii. 15), of believing and turning to the 
Lord (Acts xi. 21), of repenting and turning to God 
(Acts xxvi. 20) ; but the Scriptures never speak of be- 



362 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

ing baptized and turning. For a very apparent reason. 
Hearing, understanding, believing, repenting, each of 
these implied in some general mention of conversion 
(Acts ix. 35 ; Thess. i. 9), while again spoken of spe- 
cifically, now one, now another, in connection with 
conversion, leaving yet some aspect of conversion to 
be explained beyond hearing, beyond understanding, 
beyond faith, beyond repentance, simply, according to 
Apostolic teaching and practice, leaves baptism as the 
final step, the final fact, of conversion. Fully con- 
firming this sense of the consummation of salvation in 
baptism, is the fact that salvation is . so specifically 
mentioned with faith, repentance, confession, viewed 
as steps in the way of salvation. The Scriptures are 
numerous. "Every one that believeth on him shall 
receive remission of sins " (Acts x. 43). "Repent- 
ance and remission of sins should be preached in his 
name" (Luke xxiv. 47). "With the mouth confes- 
sion is made unto salvation " (Rom. x. 10). The Script- 
ures are numerous, various, emphatic — too many to be 
indicated here — faith and salvation, repentance unto 
life, confession and union with God. But are we to 
think that the Scriptures speak in vain when they say 
in so many words, "Which also after a true likeness 
doth now save you, even baptism" (I. Pet. iii. 21)? 
If with faith, with repentance, with confession, salva- 
tion is connected, these going before baptism, and if 
with baptism also, coming after these, salvation is 
coupled, then salvation must have in baptism a real, 
not a fictitious, consummation, and this consummation 
is real because salvation has a real, not a fictitious, re- 
lation to faith, repentance, confession, as the antece- 
dents of baptism. 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 363 

At this point, therefore, the sense of baptism for 
the remission of sins may distinctly and roundedly ap- 
pear in the Biblical light of redemption. In view of 
the induction of Scriptures, and in view of these four 
definitions, this sense may be clearly seen in its own 
rational and real meaning, as against all error of the- 
ory, and in harmony with the whole truth of the Gospel. 

It is an error to view or preach baptism for the re- 
mission of sins as meaning that there is no reality of 
salvation for one until one is baptized, no promise of 
salvation, no assurance of salvation, in any real sense, 
for one except in one's baptism. It surely would be 
one man out of ten thousand, at least in Protestant 
Christendom, who, because the Scriptures teach bap- 
tism for the remission of sins, would straightway work 
his logical abilities to prove that infants dying unbap- 
tized, die unsaved ; or, if he should shrink from this ap- 
palling conclusion concerning infants, would stiffen his 
logic to prove it as regards the adult heathen. But it 
is just as erroneous, scripturally, to affirm that the 
penitent believer, who has also confessed hi? Saviour 
and Lord, has no salvation, no promise of it, no assur- 
ance of it, in any real sense, until he is baptized. The 
lamentable unscripturalness of such a position, whether 
of essay or sermon, by whomsoever affirmed, strik- 
ingly betrays itself when the effort is made, in the 
spirit of mercy, to find some reason, confessedly out of 
the Scriptures, for the salvation of the penitent be- 
liever who, not willfully, lives or dies without baptism. 
The very spirit that insists so strongly on the chapter 
and verse of Scripture for every proof of the will of 
God concerning man, precipitates itself into the bald- 
est rationalism by endeavoring to separate salvation 



364 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

and the promise of salvation, by begging the question 
in such a phrase as "the uncovenanted mercies of 
God," or becoming still more rationalistic and agnostic 
in arguing upon what it calls "the general principles 
of God's government." 

This error, as we shall see in the next and conclud- 
ing articles of our study, has been an incident of a 
mighty historical reaffirmation of baptism for the re- 
mission of sins in the Apostolic practicalness of that 
doctrine. The error, as we shall see, has had its 
growth, sometimes a rank growth, in the exigencies of 
theological controversy. The whole trouble of it, as 
may be seen right here, is in the false method of in- 
terpreting the relation of baptism to faith, repentance, 
confession, with each of which salvation is mentioned. 
According to this method, although salvation is men- 
tioned sometimes with faith, sometimes with repent- 
ance, sometimes with confession, yet, as it is men- 
tioned also with baptism, which is the consequent of 
these, the conclusion is strangely reached that of these 
antecedents of baptism salvation, therefore, can not be 
predicated as in any sense a real possession, but 
really and only as these antecedents lead up to bap- 
tism, where and when is the first reality of the forgive- 
ness of sins, only and really in promise and assurance 
there. The method rightly emphasizes the death of 
Christ as the ground of our salvation, the necessity of 
heartfelt faith and repentance, what it calls " a change 
of heart " ; but it sees no real reception of salvation 
by the penitent believer in scriptural promise or assur- 
ance until he is baptized. 

The error is a wholly gratuitous one, on its very 
face, in its presuming to empty faith, repentance, con- 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 365 

fession, of all possession of salvation except as they 
are joined with baptism. It is not an exposition of 
the Scriptures that teach faith, repentance, confession, 
baptism, in connection with salvation. It is the un- 
conscious imposition of a rationalistic logic upon 
these Scriptures. If the Scriptures teach faith and 
salvation, repentance and salvation, confession and 
salvation, baptism and salvation, it is simply a ra- 
tionalistic logic that, for instance, argues all sense 
of salvation out of faith so mentioned, and argues 
salvation of faith only and really in possession as 
faith expresses itself in baptism. The true read- 
ing of these Scriptures, as one reads of faith and 
salvation, for instance the Scripture, "Believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," is not 
straightway to deny any possession of salvation to the 
Philippian jailer until a little later he was baptized, to 
deny this because another Scripture says, "He that 
believeth and is baptized shall be saved." No; the 
true reading of each of the Scriptures is to read a re- 
ality of salvation for the jailer as he believed, and to 
read a reality of salvation for him as he was baptized, 
the relation of his faith, small as a mustard seed, to 
his salvation, a real one, the relation of his baptism, 
in bodily form, element, action, to his salvation, a real 
one, both his faith and his baptism spiritual verities 
of his life, in each and in both for him the realization 
of the redemption that is in Christ, whatever be the 
varied though harmonious senses in which faith and 
baptism, respectively, are viewed as really related to 
salvation. 

Again, the error has notably emphasized itself in 
the mechanical sense which it has associated with the 



366 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

Scripture phrase, "the remission of sins." It has not 
merely looked at "the remission of sins " as a true 
description of salvation, truly so as regards the sins of 
the past and their burden on the conscience, and set 
forth this as a blessing of salvation. But here again 
the errror, in all its rationalizing tendency, has had its 
perfect work. The "remission of sins " has been ab- 
stracted from its vital place in the redemption that is in 
Christ, demonstrably disconnected from the Scriptures 
that speak of it so livingly along with ethical motives 
and spiritual character, and preached, illustrated, 
proved in the light of governmental analogies, legal 
procedures, social expedients, and if there be any 
other thing that is contrary to the Gospel of Christ as 
a real power of the living God in human life. It is 
this phase of the error that has done the most in find- 
ing and affirming the virtual negative, which denies 
that, in the Scriptures, there is any reality of salvation 
for the antecedents of baptism, and asserts salvation as 
a real possession only of the penitent believer bap- 
tized. Salvation has been viewed abstractly as "the 
remission of sins," and the remission has been preached 
abstractly as a judicial pronouncement of God upon 
the baptized believer. One of the frequent emphases 
has been that this forgiveness or pardon takes place in 
the mind of God, not in the heart of the sinner. In 
this light the remission of sins has no vital, necessary 
association, previously to baptism, with the man's con- 
sciousness of a spiritual renewal of heart and mind, 
whether looking to the sins of the past or the duties 
of the future. There may be a genuine change of 
mind and heart inwardly, sorrow for sin, the strong 
will to do better, a warm love of the Saviour; still, 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 367 

according to this theory, there is no salvation, in a 
real, scriptural assurance, until one, thus believing and 
repenting, is baptized for the remission of sins. Such 
logic easily then has its perfect work. With this 
sense of salvation, abstractly and only, as the remis- 
sion of sins, it abstracts salvation in any real sense 
from faith or repentance or confession. It denies sal- 
vation to these as at all a reality of spiritual conscious- 
ness until they, as antecedents, have had their conse- 
quent in what the logic has frequently called an arbi- 
trary appointment of the Divine will, namely, baptism. 
Indeed, this rationalizing has professed to arise to the 
dignity of a philosophy of the question, in that, while 
proving salvation to be promised really in an objective 
act, and in no sense to be a reality in previous sub- 
jetive changes of mind and heart, though these must 
take place beforehand, it thus proves salvation to be 
all the more of grace, and not of merit ! 

To state such errors is practically to refute them. 
They grow out of a rationalizing habit. We shall be 
delivered from them as we understand salvation in all 
its real, vital, scriptural meaning. Salvation, undoubt- 
edly, has, in the Scriptures, varied aspects. Even so. 
But it is always a spiritual reality, never a mere ab- 
straction, in any Scripture where it is mentioned. 
Wherever predicated, whether in the energy of God 
or in the experience of man, there it is real, whatever 
be the aspect, the stage, the growth, the status, the 
process, the season, the fullness. 

As we read Scripture after Scripture that speaks of 
salvation manward, we see how real it is for him and 
in him, at his every experience of its influence. In 
his very first hearing of it, in view of his sin and need, 



368 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

he heard what was real for him and in him. " Having 
heard the word of truth," says Paul in the Scripture 
that sets forth the eternal purpose and work of God in 
redemption, ** having heard the word of truth, the 
gospel of your salvation " (Eph. i. 13). It was real 
for men and in men as, hearing the Gospel of their 
salvation, each one realized his salvation more and more 
as a personal experience, in a growing, active faith 
(Eph. ii. 8-10; Gal. v. 6 ; Jas. ii. 22), or in a deepening 
repentance (Acts xvi. 33 ; xxvi. 20). It was real for 
those and in those who, with the mouth, confessed Jesus 
of Nazareth to be the Christ — their Saviour, their 
Teacher, their Lord (Rom. x. 9, 10; I. John iv. 2). 
The salvation predicated of the penitent believer in 
the Scriptures is not a fictitious salvation, not an 
emptily figurative salvation, not a merely prospective 
salvation. It is real as a change of mind, a renewal 
of the heart, a reinvigoration of the will. That clear 
conviction of sin, that heartfelt persuasion of Christ as 
a Saviour, that willingness to do God's will, all this in- 
ward renovation, the work of the Spirit of truth in His 
strivings with men, mean salvation as a present re- 
ality. Such a spiritual renewal of the springs of one's 
being, such a spiritual transformation of the courses of 
one's life, are possible only as a real redemption wrought 
for men and working really in man, according as he 
receives it. Thought by thought, feeling by feeling, 
will by will, as the influence of the word of the truth 
of the Gospel works duly in him, it is the Gospel of 
his salvation — an ethical reality in every touch of every 
experience, never an abstraction of logic. It can but 
be real, where of one such penitent believer a fact of 
spiritual experience is noteworthily told, u Behold, he 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 369 

prayeth " (Acts ix. 11). It can but be real where an 
unbeliever may be so convicted in the assembly of the 
saints that then and there he may ''fall down on his 
face and worship God, declaring that God is in " them 
"indeed " (I. Cor. xiv. 25). It can but be real if to 
children already belongs the kingdom of God, which 
they may receive according to the parental nurturing 
of them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord 
(Luke xviii. 16; Eph. vi. 4). 

In each and all of these aspects and experiences 
manward, salvation is real, because in it is present 
always its force and fact as a spiritual influence in life. 
It is salvation from sin and unto righteousness. It 
saves one from the sin of the past, which burdens the 
conscience. It saves one from the sin of the present, 
which clouds the mind, and entices the heart, and en- 
slaves the will. But it is then immediately and always 
a salvation for righteous living and spiritual character. 
So real, vital, powerful, ethically and spiritually, is the 
blood of Jesus Christ as shed for the remission of sins. 
Thus real and vital, in its breadth and depth, is the 
Scripture idea of salvation taught as the remission of 
sins. And baptism, therefore, neither magically nor 
mechanically, but really is for the remission of sins. 
Into baptism descends the adult Philippian jailer, out 
of a hard heathen life ; and into baptism descends the 
child Timothy, knowing the Scriptures and loving and 
practicing righteousness Irom his cradle. Both were 
baptized for the remission of their sins. The jailer 
and the child both needed the redemption that is in 
Christ. They both had always experienced, as they 
would to their dying day experience, the conflict inev- 
itable from the presence of evil in man. The jailer 



370 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

had sinned. The child had sinned. Both needed a 
righteousness not their own. The jailer heard it now 
plainly for the first time. The child had been taught 
it from the cradle in the prophetic light that grew more 
and more to the sunlit day of Gospel grace and glory. 
To them both their baptism was for the remission of 
their sins. It represented their salvation. In it their 
salvation was confirmed. It associated them in salva- 
tion. In it their salvation was consummated. A re- 
ality already in the jailer's repentance, as he tenderly 
washed the prisoner's stripes before he was baptized ; 
a reality beforehand in the child's faith, as he loved 
God, and learned of the Messiah to come, it was thus 
and more a reality, growing, deepening, filling their 
lives, as they were baptized. 

For, baptism unto the remission of sins in the sense 
of a representation, a confirmation, an association, 
and, above all, a consummation of salvation, is such, 
and especially a consummation, as the baptized man is 
still in process of being saved. His baptism looks be- 
fore and after. As already noted, those whom "the 
Lord added together day by day" by baptism, were 
" those that were being saved " (Acts ii. 47). Their 
baptism was a consummation of salvation, and still 
their baptism became, in Apostolic teaching, a main- 
spring of good in a process of salvation. "But ye 
were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were 
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in 
the Spirit of our God" (I. Cor. vi. 11), is the congrat- 
ulation of Paul to his Corinthian converts, in view of 
the riches of salvation in their baptism. "According 
to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of re- 
generation and renewing of the Holy Spirit " (Tit. iii. 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 37 I 

5), is the Apostolic teaching of a salvation through 
baptism, which continues, still a process, under the re- 
newing influences of the Holy Spirit. " For as many 
as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ" (Gal. 
iii. 27), is Paul's proof of a sonship to God, through 
faith in Christ Jesus. But to believers who put on 
Christ in baptism the exhortation still is given, " Put 
ye on the Lord Jesus Christ " (Rom. xiii. 14). "Which 
also after a true likeness doth now save you, even bap- 
tism " (I. Pet. iii. 21), so vividly does Peter represent 
salvation in baptism, since its effect flows on in the re- 
ality and activity of a good conscience toward God. 
"Unto obedience of faith among all the nations" 
(Rom. i. 5), ''made known unto all the nations unto 
obedience of faith " (Rom. xvi. 26), such is the end of 
the Gospel of grace — not only faith, but an obedient 
faith, which, according to a multitude of Scriptures, 
becomes a witness of salvation (Rom. vi. 17 ; Heb. xi.) ; 
not only faith, but a faith energetic in works, and by 
works made perfect, which so is reckoned for right- 
eousness (Jas. ii. 14-26). The process of salvation is 
in process of one's obedience, where truly baptism may 
be called an obedience of faith. It is not so to be 
called in an exclusive sense, viewed as an arbitrary ap- 
pointment where God only and really saves the peni- 
tent believer by a judicial pronouncement of pardon 
exhaustively called the remission of sins. It is an obe- 
dience of faith, even as the good confession is such an 
obedience, or one's worthy work of washing wounded 
men's stripes before one's baptism. Baptism is an 
obedience of faith, in which there is real salvation, as 
one's obedience before baptism or in baptism or after 
baptism, each and all, really receive and really express 



372 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

the righteousness of God in one's life and char- 
acter. 

Thus real is salvation manward, according to the 
Scriptures, as man receives it in the obedience of faith — 
in his hearing, his believing, his repenting, his confess- 
ing, his being baptized — because, as we have seen all 
along, and may now appreciate the doctrine better 
than ever, this salvation has an eternal purpose and 
process in the will of God. The salvation of each one, 
as God chooses him, as he believes and knows the 
truth which makes for godliness, has the "hope of 
eternal life, which God, who can not lie, promised be- 
fore times eternal ; but in his own seasons manifested 
his word in the message " (Tit. i. 1-3). It is God who 
saves, and He "saved us, and called us with a holy- 
calling, not according to our works, but according 
to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in 
Christ Jesus before times eternal, but hath now been 
manifested by the appearing of our Saviour Christ 
Jesus, who abolished death, and brought light and in- 
corruption to light through the Gospel " (II. Tim. i. 9, 
10). The promise of eternal life "before times eter- 
nal," the gift of grace in Christ " before times eternal " 
— this sound doctrine we are not to belittle by any nar- 
row Calvinistic interpretation. Nor are we to dilute it 
in any loose Universalism. Nor are we to rationalize 
it by vague Arminian methods. We are to receive it 
in all its light of a purpose, process, promise of salva- 
tion for all men on the part of God, according as He 
"is," not will be, "the Saviour of all men, specially 
of them that believe " (I. Tim. iv. 10). It is the real- 
ity of the eternal redemption that is in Christ, a pur- 
pose of God toward men, a power of God in men, a 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 373 

promise of God for men. Whoever hears the Gospel, 
hears indeed the Gospel of his salvation (Eph. i. 13), 
obtained for all men by the sacrifice of Christ (Heb. 
ix. 26-28), and preached "unto all the nations unto 
obedience of faith" (Rom. xvi. 26). Because it 
is a Gospel of world-wide grace, superabounding 
over all sin (Rom. v. 20) ; because it is a Gospel 
Of world - wide purpose and power, ' ' God in Christ 
reconciling the world unto himself, not reckon- 
ing unto them their trespasses" (II. Cor. v. 19), the 
responsibility of men is forever focused in a burning 
light. As they hear the Gospel of their salvation, so 
real, so free, so clear, so near, in their mouths and in 
their hearts (Rom. x. 8), their conviction of sin will 
be that they believe not on their Saviour (John xvi. 
8-10). As they hear the Gospel of their salvation, so 
real, so free, so near, in their mouths and in their 
hearts, if they thrust it from them, their terrible guilt 
is that they judge themselves " unworthy of eternal 
life " (Acts xiii. 46). As they hear the Gospel of their 
salvation, so real, so free, so near, in their mouths and 
in their hearts, it becomes, as they appropriate it, "a 
savor from life unto life " ; as they reject it, "a savor 
from death unto death " (II. Cor. ii. 16). It is the re- 
ality, the freeness, the nearness of the salvation of 
the Gospel, as preached and heard, that make it sweetly 
reasonable for the penitent believer willingly and 
eagerly to be baptized unto the remission of his sins, 
and to chant thereafter, as a memory and motive in 
his spiritual life, "I acknowledge one baptism for the 
remission of sins." 



374 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

7. 

A HISTORICAL REAFFIRMATION OF BAPTISM FOR THE 
REMISSION OF SINS, AND THE LESSONS. 

The nineteenth century has seen a remarkable re- 
affirmation of the note of the old Nicene Creed, "one 
baptism for the remission of sins." The reaffirmation 
began in a truly critical need. It has been a clear re- 
affirmation, and persistent, courageous, triumphant. 
Thousands upon thousands of preachers of the Gospel 
have proclaimed the old Apostolic commandment, 
" Be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus 
Christ unto the remission of your sins " (Acts ii. 38), 
and hundreds and thousands of penitent believers have 
been so baptized, and have gone on their way rejoic- 
ing. It has been such a re-affirmation of the Apostolic 
doctrine as will never again, in the mission of the 
Gospel, be practically lost in silence. It came at such 
a critical time, it edified such a critical need, demon- 
strating itself as irrefutably scriptural and catholic, 
proving itself so spiritual and helpful, that henceforth 
baptism unto the remission of sins will more and more 
have its note in all true preaching of the Gospel, and 
be confessed by all who endeavor to hold fast the pat- 
tern of sound words. It is the crisis of this re-affirma- 
tion, what called it forth, what justified it, what illumi- 
nated it, what made it scripturally powerful notwith- 
standing misapprehension and unscriptural defenses of 
it, that will teach us anew the rightful place of baptism 
for the remission of sins in the Biblical doctrine of re- 
demption, and enable us to preach it all the more con- 
vincingly in right divisions of the Word of truth. 

This was the crisis. The facts may have a true 
focus thus. A revival meeting was going on. Preach- 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 375 

ers were convicting sinners of their sins. Many, in 
fears and tears, were inquiring the way of salvation. 
The answer chiefly was, Mourn on ; wait ; pray. And 
sinners did mourn on, often in agonies of distress for 
days and weeks. They waited a long, weary time. 
They prayed for themselves, and others prayed for 
them. Some at last, according to the religious 
slang of the age, "got through," or "got re- 
ligion," or were " gloriously converted." The proof 
of it was how they felt. For this feeling they had 
mourned, wept, waited, prayed. They were taught 
that it was a very distinct feeling, a certain sensation, 
the only proof of regeneration, of sound conversion, 
of saving faith. Thousands testified that they had it, 
and many a time they told of getting it in electric 
shocks, amid marvelous sights and sounds, in wonder- 
ful experiences of noontide solitude or midnight 
prayer. But, alas ! there were many who, with all 
their tears and supplications, failed to get such an ex- 
perience, and went away from the "mourner's bench " 
confirmed infidels ; and, strange to say, not a few even 
of those that professed such an experience, yet losing 
it or having it only fitfully, walked in doubts, and 
wondered where was the blessedness once they knew. 
This is the condensed statement of a paragraph. 
The proofs of the truthfulness of it are legion. They 
may be read in the records of the pens of men now 
dead. They may be heard from lips of many a man 
still living. Such facts made the pathos and romance 
especially of American pioneer history as, whether in 
mistake or in truth, Christ was preached in camp and 
cabin, amid Virginia slashes, or through Kentucky 
forests, or over Hoosier prairies. In the religious re- 



37^ THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

vivals of our West and South, in scores of times in 
scores of years, wherever the Gospel of the grace of 
God was professedly preached, this was the preaching, 
this was the effect, that salvation is a feeling to be had 
only in the pains of prayer, and that a multitude of 
souls waited on their knees, in sad suspense, for the 
salvation of God. 

In this crisis, the old Apostolic commandment was 
heard, "Be baptized every one of you in the name of 
Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins." Hun- 
dreds of other preachers came along, and wherever 
they found a Gentile anxious to be saved, believing in 
his heart that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and 
willing to cut off his sins by righteousness, they ex- 
horted him, " And now why tarriest thou? arise, and 
be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on his 
name." It was on the waiting souls of penitent believ- 
ers that the old Apostolic doctrine burst like a finer light 
in light. There it was, unmistakably, in the Word of 
God, in the Book of the Acts, the great book of con- 
versions. These preachers had found it again so easily, 
to reaffirm it so seasonably, because of their very atti- 
tude toward the Word of God. They were free from 
all infections of theological prejudice. They were eman- 
cipated from all tyranny of ecclesiastical traditions. 
They acknowledged no dogmatic system as the un- 
changeable, authoritative interpretation of the Bible. 
They were exalting the Word of God above all man- 
made creeds, and were nobly advocating Christian 
union on the Bible alone as the authority of faith and 
practice. 

Such a right use of the Word of God, in, above all, 
such a noble plea for Christian union, was bound to 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 377 

bring forth on more than one thing scriptural teaching 
and scriptural practice, against prevalent heresies and 
errors. It was just as inevitable, therefore, that these 
men would reject infant baptism as unscriptural, as 
that they would reaffirm baptism for the remission of 
sins. What distinguishes the reaffirmation, was that it 
came in a crisis. It was the crisis of a great need. It 
was a crisis of immortal souls. It was a crisis of sen- 
sitive hearts. While Christ was magnified as the only 
and all-sufficient Saviour, the sinner was in lack of lip^ht 
in which to receive the assurance of salvation. What 
light was professedly seen, was notoriously doubtful 
and fitful for many ; while others, penitent and anx- 
ious, sat in darkness. Upon tens of thousands the 
light, the full, unclouded light of the Gospel, glori- 
ously arose. It was for many a benighted man and 
woman the dawn of a new day. It was the light of 
the assurance of salvation. It was according to the Acts 
of the Apostles. In that book, the book of conver- 
sions, how sinners were saved under Apostolic doc- 
trine, said these preachers over and over, we read of 
no prolonged mourning for salvation, no weary waiting 
for salvation, no proofs of salvation only in certain 
mystical feelings, no uncertainties of salvation, never 
a disappointment of salvation to any one sincerely in- 
quiring. No, said these men of God, with all the en- 
thusiasm that a true man of God has in edifying a hu- 
man need with the truth of God's Word, we always, 
in the Acts of the Apostles, read of a salvation clear, 
near, sure, in the promise of God, for penitent be- 
lievers baptized. 

Thousands and tens of thousands that received this 
Word were, of course, baptized. All along they knew 



378 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

in their hearts that they were sorry for their sins, and 
were anxious to be saved. They knew and felt their 
need of a Saviour, in the piercing convictions of the 
Spirit of truth. They believed all that the Gospel 
taught of Him as an all-sufficient Saviour. But they 
were told, in a mystifying way, that this was "only 
historical faith" ; they had not yet " exercised saving 
faith" ; they must still wait and pray for " the experi- 
ence of the Spirit in 'the heart," an experience more 
and other than any influence of the Gospel as heard, 
separate from any instrumentality of truth whatever; 
they must look for this mysterious action of the Spirit 
of God in their souls, apart from the word of the truth 
of the Gospel, as "the feeling sense of pardon." It 
was in this crisis, historically, that multitudes, con- 
victed of sin, heartily repenting, heartily believing the 
Word of God, yet unassured of salvation, taught to 
wait and pray for something else still as a proof of sal- 
vation, tarried no longer when they understood the full 
Apostolic Gospel, but arose, and were baptized in 
the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of their sins. 
Such a historical reaffirmation of baptism for the 
remission of sins, edifying such a critical need, has 
done a lasting good. The lessons of this good read 
two ways. It abides as, more and more, a potent cor- 
rective of popular errors in religious revivals. It will 
outlive the very erroneous ways in which those that 
discovered the practical helpfulness of baptism for the 
remission of sins, have often presented the doctrine to 
the people. The lessons of the abiding good of this 
Scripture doctrine, thus notably reaffirmed, are to be 
read both against the errors of its opponents and the 
mistakes of its advocates. 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 379 

For, as regards the errors of the opponents of the 
doctrine of baptism for the remission of sins, the gist 
of their error was the absolute mysteriousness of salvation. 
Salvation was of God in the sense that, in man's re- 
ception of it, man was wholly passive in prayer, receiv- 
ing salvation assuredly altogether apart from any in- 
strumentality whatever. Not only was man to do 
nothing for his salvation, but he could not even believe 
except as faith was wrought in him as a gift by the 
immediate, irresistible, wholly inexplicable action of 
the Spirit of God. Baptism as in any sense related to 
salvation, was, of course, nowhere in view. One's 
faith might speak its conviction of the need of salva- 
tion, and its willingness to accept salvation in the prom- 
ise of God; but this, as already noted, was only "his- 
torical faith," not "saving faith." Such doctrine, 
when fully fledged, necessarily opposed "getting up a 
revival," or " teaching religion to children," or " car- 
rying the Gospel to the heathen." The mighty re- 
affirmation of baptism for the remission of sins smote 
like light upon such an error. It showed not only 
that the great commission of the Gospel read, "He 
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved," but that 
this believing required by the Gospel came by hearing 
the Gospel (Acts xviii. 8; Rom. x. 14-17). It 
showed from a host of Scriptures that, while the Spirit 
of God did a work of convicting men of sin and be- 
getting in them a new life, He convinced them of sin 
with the Word of God as a sword (Eph. vi. 17; Heb. 
iv. 12), and begot in them a new life with the Word of 
God as seed (Luke viii. 1 1 ; I. Pet. i. 23). It neces- 
sarily, therefore, whenever men, hearing the Gospel, 
received the Word in their hearts as the truth of God, 



38O THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

exhorted such penitent believers, on the authority of 
Christ, to be baptized for the remission of their sins. 
The practical helpfulness of baptism for the remission 
of sins was the necessary result of the scriptural ra- 
tionality of heartfelt faith in Jesus as the Christ, the 
Son of the living God. 

It is very plain these days that the old error of the 
absolute mysteriousness of salvation, as once held and 
preached, is fast clearing away in the scriptural light of 
the rationality of a spiritual faith in God and Christ. 
A great many preachers may not yet preach an assur- 
ance of salvation in baptism to penitent believers. 
They may not yet exhort a penitent believer to arise 
and be baptized, and wash away his sins, calling on the 
name of the Lord. But they do preach faith as a re- 
sponsibility for sinners. They — typically a Moody, a 
Whittle, a Pentecost, a Mills — do warn sinners not to 
wait, not to trust to their feelings for a proof of par- 
don, but to believe in Christ as a Saviour on the au- 
thority of God's Word. Silent as they are about bap- 
tism, they preach a salvation of grace, free for all, to 
be accepted by a heartfelt faith in the simple promise 
of the Gospel, " Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou 
shalt be saved" (Acts xvi. 31). 

But, as regards the mistakes of the advocates of 
the doctrine of baptism for the remission of sins, the 
gist of their mistake was the restriction of the promise of 
salvation to baptism. It was reading a negation into 
the Scriptures where there is not a syllable of it. They 
fell into the mistake amid the exigencies of hot con- 
troversy. Holding and preaching the Apostolic com- 
mandment to penitent believers, " Be baptized every 
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the re- 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 38 1 

mission of your sins," these men of God, while rejoic- 
ing to see the practical good of the doctrine, frequently 
rationalized the doctrine in their enthusiastic advocacy 
of it. Their mistakes of advocacy were incidents occa- 
sioned by their intensely practical aim to meet a crying 
need of thousands to whom they preached. They found 
a sinner in tears and prayer, really sorry for his sins, 
really believing the truth of the Gospel concerning a 
salvation of light and love. Other preachers were 
telling him to mourn on, and to pray for a saving faith 
apart from the testimony of the Gospel : there could 
be no pardon nor peace in simple historical faith, pen- 
itent and heartfelt though it be. There was the crisis. 
There was the issue. Unmistakably the Gospel said, 
"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." 
These men of God practically read that promise, they 
practically preached it — the promise of salvation to 
one who was baptized in possession of a heartfelt faith, 
in confession of a heartfelt faith, whenever and wherever 
produced through the preaching of the Gospel, the 
faith that Jesus Christ is Saviour and Lord. 

The exigency of the controversy is plain enough. 
The opponents of baptism for the remission of sins 
decried a faith produced through the preaching of the 
Gospel, heartfelt though it be. The advocates of bap- 
tism for the remission of sins defended such a faith, 
and urged it on to baptism. It was the crisis, the 
issue, whether a heartfelt faith should wait and pray 
on, or whether it should go on to baptism. It was the 
crisis, the issue, whether a heartfelt faith should wait 
in prayer for the promise of salvation, or should be 
baptized in the assurance of salvation. The truth of 
the old Apostolic doctrine triumphed ; but the mistake 



382 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

of its advocates was right on the heels of victory. 
The opponents of baptism for the remission of 
sins said, No salvation for faith except such as is 
wrought apart from the truth of the Gospel, by an al- 
together different agency and method. The advocates 
of baptism for the remission of sins, in their practical 
eagerness (he that has read of the progress of truth 
will understand), stumbled into affirming the unscript- 
ural negative, There is salvation in promise only when 
one, having this heartfelt faith in hearing the Gospel, 
is baptized. The rationalizing subtly crept in, as, find- 
ing the penitent believer mournfully waiting, and hard 
sometimes to be convinced of the error of waiting for 
an extraordinary proof of pardon, they urgently ex- 
horted him not to tarry, but, having such a genuine 
faith, to be baptized. As their opponent found no as- 
surance of salvation in what he called " only historical 
faith," vitally personal and heartfelt though it be, so 
they were unconsciously driven, between the opponent's 
stout error and some poor penitent believer 's confusion and 
halting, to argue to him as well as to exhort : and the ar- 
gument zvas, this very heartfelt faith has no assu*a7tce of 
salvation until upon confession of it you are baptized. 

The mistake of the advocates of baptism for the re- 
mission of sins was in not reading the beginning of 
salvation which the Scriptures affirm of a vital, per- 
sonal faith produced in hearing the Gospel. Their op- 
ponent was wrong in slurring such a faith, and demand- 
ing what he called another kind of faith. They were 
right in preaching that such a faith was ready for 
baptism, and that to such a penitent believer there was 
the promise of salvation in his baptism. They ration- 
alized, however, the instant they denied the assurance 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 383 

of salvation at all to any until baptized. The true 
scriptural course was to see, in any heart warm with 
love for the Saviour, turned from love of sin to love of 
righteousness, willing to obey the Gospel, the presence 
of a living faith, in which already there was the prom- 
ise of salvation. They would have had a double refu- 
tation of the opponent of baptism for the remission of 
sins. They would have vindicated more strongly the 
scriptural reality' of a vital, personal faith produced in 
hearing the Gospel, and, while elucidating better the 
practical and helpful sense in which the penitent be. 
liever is baptized unto the remission of his sins, would 
not have had the trouble of a self-imposed agnosticism 
as to the fate of a penitent believer dying in simple 
lack of baptism. They could have preached all the 
more powerfully that although, in the Scriptures, the 
lack of baptism condemns no one, yet the contempt 
and rejection of baptism will condemn any one ; for in 
the lack of baptism through ignorance or accident 
there may still be a genuine faith in Christ as Saviour, 
while the contempt and rejection of baptism mean the 
disobedience that springs from a disbelieving heart. 
Such straightforward doctrine, not making the mistake 
of restricting the promise of salvation to baptism, 
would have been the sound interpretation and applica- 
tion of the Scripture, " He that believeth and is bap- 
tized shall be saved ; but he that disbelieveth shall be 
condemned" (Mark xvi. 16). 



384 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

8, 

A HISTORICAL REAFFIRMATION OF BAPTISM FOR 
THE REMISSION OF SINS, AND THE LESSONS. 

The opponents of baptism for the remission of sins 
committing their capital mistake in affirming the abso- 
lute mysteriousness of salvation, it was inevitable that, 
in representing the office and work of the Holy Spirit 
in the salvation of man, their teaching should become 
a tangle of errors from beginning to end. According 
to this teaching, the sinner was dead in trespasses and 
in sins — so dead that it called for a direct operation of 
the Holy Spirit, apart from all other agency or instru- 
mentality, before he could hear and believe savingly. 
It was the other side of the doctrine that man is born 
totally depraved, and that there is no redemption for 
him or in him, in any exercise of a rational and moral 
constitution, until this visitation of the Spirit of God 
independently of all secondary methods or means. 
We need not pause to amuse ourselves, dialectically, 
over the contradictions of this theory. It is the seri- 
ous practical results of it that claim our attention. 
These are facts of history. The sinner, although to- 
tally dead in sin, was exhorted to kneel at the mourner's 
bench and to pray for himself, while others prayed for 
him, that the Holy Spirit would come down and re- 
generate him in that passive condition wholly apart 
from any influence of the Gospel of truth. It was 
called a baptism of the Spirit. The prayer was for a 
copious baptism of the Spirit, a Pentecostal shower 
of blessing, an outpouring of the Holy Ghost on 
mourning sinners, that they might be saved. Salva- 
tion would come, so it was taught, in such passive 
waiting, and the sign would be a certain feeling, a pe- 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 385 

culiar sensation, called the witness of the Spirit in the 
heart as a unique experience realized without the in- 
strumentality of the preached Word. Many were the 
marvelous stories told how this "feeling sense of par- 
don " came in such direct operations of the Spirit ; 
and, alas ! many were the suspenses, the disappoint- 
ments, the agonies of others who knelt and prayed, 
and wondered if God had forgotten to be gracious to 
needy, inquiring sinners. 

Here, again, the advocates of baptism for the re- 
mission of sins swept field after field in victory, a pha- 
lanx of preachers armed with the truth of God ; and 
again is there for us the lesson how the truth mightily 
triumphs in the preaching of the Gospel, notwith- 
standing now and then the mistakes made in doc- 
trine and advocacy. These teachers and advocates, 
equally admitting and affirming the grace and presence 
of God in all true conversion, preached that the Gos- 
pel is the power of God unto salvation to every be- 
liever. They struck hard at the theory that salvation 
is a miracle, wrought in a sinner independent of his 
faith, and producing his faith apart from the Word of 
truth. Teaching that faith comes by hearing (Acts 
xviii. 8 ; Rom. x. 17), they proclaimed the very first re- 
sponsibility of man to hear the Gospel of light and love. 
They vigorously denied that the Word of God is, in 
any sense, " a dead letter." They affirmed that it is 
"living and active," convicting, renewing, sanctifying, 
saving (Heb. x. 12; Acts ii. 37; I. Pet. i. 23; Jas. i. 
21). They were simply invincible, both by the teach- 
ing and the examples of conversion in the New Testa- 
ment, in pressing home upon the sinner his responsi- 
bility to hear and believe the preached Word, without 



386 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

passively waiting for a miraculous operation of the 
Holy Spirit accomplished aside from all instrumental- 
ity. They were simply unanswerable in their proof 
that nowhere in the Book of the Acts, the great book 
of conversions, is there an instance that a sinner was 
taught to do nothing but pray and wait for a baptism 
of the Spirit as the sign of his salvation. They had 
chapter and verse, irrefutable, that the inquirer who, 
hearing, believed, was exhorted to repent and be bap- 
tized, not only for the remission of sins, but for the 
gift of the Holy Spirit, the possession of the Holy 
Spirit a result of the obedience of faith (Acts ii. 38 ; v. 
32; Gal. iv. 6; Eph. i. 13, 14). 

These mighty preachers, however, encumbered 
their doctrine along this line of conflict also by the no- 
tion that, scripturally, the promise of salvation is re- 
stricted to baptism. They did not, they could not, do 
full justice to the presence and work o'f the Holy Spirit 
in redemption. They rationalized again in their inter- 
pretation and use of certain Scriptures. We need not 
stop to recall certain extreme utterances that aug- 
mented the din of controversy. These were ex- 
ceptional. It is rather the high honor of these men of 
God that, notwithstanding the heat and smoke of the- 
ological debate, they, with consummate tact in the 
practical knowledge of the Bible, pointed to the clear- 
ings in which the truth of the Gospel shone luminously 
in its directions of the sinner's steps to the assurance 
of salvation. But here again, rightly preaching that 
the power of God is in the Gospel, rightly warn- 
ing the sinner not to waif for a miraculous outpouring 
of the Holy Spirit in order to believe savingly, rightly 
proclaiming the gift of the Holy Spirit to the penitent 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 387 

believer baptized, they erred in denying that there was 
any real, conscious blessing of the Spirit for the penitent 
believer until his baptism. The rationalizing was nota- 
bly practiced in the common argument about the 
Scripture doctrine of baptism in the Holy Spirit. Ac- 
cording to their interpretation, the baptism in the Holy 
Spirit was purely a miracle, and occurred only twice, 
on the day of Pentecost and at the conversion of Cor- 
nelius (Acts ii., x., xi.). Occurring thus twice, it wholly 
ceased. 

Here the mistake was occasioned evidently by the 
exclusive emphasis of the promise of salvation, and 
any privilege of the Spirit as a personal possession, as 
connected only with baptism in water. It was inevita- 
ble that the advocates of baptism for the remission of 
sins, remission thus restricted, should rationalize such a 
predicate of Scripture as "baptized in the Holy 
Spirit." They gave the phrase, "baptism in the 
Spirit," a restricted, technical, mechanical, exclusive 
sense. There was, so they affirmed, no other mention 
of the Spirit in presence and work that, scriptu rally, 
could be a synonym with "baptism in the Spirit." 
Their failure was in not appreciating the free, fluent, 
concrete style of Scripture language generally, and 
just as truly as regards the presence and work of the 
Holy Spirit in redemption. Scripturally, baptism in 
the Spirit is a vivid and striking figure, a supreme em- 
phasis, of the presence and work of the Holy Spirit in 
redemption. Scripturally, it is an impressive descrip- 
tion of His mighty, His energetic, His pervasive, His 
continuous presence and influence personally in the 
Gospel of salvation. The doctrine of salvation is sub- 
lime, when Peter cites the prophecy of Joel as fulfilled 



388 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

in the sights and sounds of the day of Pentecost (Acts 
ii.), "I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all flesh. " 
Such unlimited language can be limited only by a ra- 
tionalizing process unjust to the Word of God. .We 
are not to feel called upon straightway to limit it be- 
cause of accompaniments of miraculous dreams and 
visions and tongues. These were but accompaniments 
of the baptism in the Spirit. They were not exhaust- 
ive signs of it. Other free, fluent Scriptures concern- 
ing the Holy Spirit forbid such a technical interpreta- 
tion. " Which he poured upon us richly," says Paul, 
speaking of the Holy Spirit where he also speaks of 
God's mercy in saving us "through the washing of re- 
generation " (Tit. iii. 4-6). Nay, the Scripture ex- 
pressly says, "In one Spirit were we all baptized into 
one body" (I. Cor. xii. 13). Verily, it is sheer ra- 
tionalizing, however unconscious, to explain away this 
explicit Scripture as in no sense teaching a baptism in 
one Spirit that is also a baptism into one body. There 
is undoubtedly " one baptism." It is, scripturally, a 
baptism in water: but it is, scripturally, also a baptism 
in the Spirit. There is a presence and power of the 
Holy Spirit after baptism. There is a presence and 
power of the Holy Spirit in the penitent believer in 
baptism. There is a presence and power of the Holy 
Spirit in the penitent believer before baptism. Where 
Peter sees the prophecy fulfilled both on Jew and Gen- 
tile, on two notable occasions, amid miraculous accom- 
paniments, the facts become doctrine true not only in 
Jerusalem and Caesarea, but in Thessalonica and wher- 
ever runs the Word of the Lord. "God chose you 
from the beginning unto salvation in sanctification of 
the Spirit and belief of the truth," says Paul to the 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 389 

Gentiles of Thessalonica (II. Thess. ii. 13). "Elect, 
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in 
sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprink- 
ling of the blood of Jesus Christ," says Peter to the 
Jews of the Dispersion (I. Pet. i. 1, 2). "In sancti- 
fication of the Spirit " — it is the interpretative note of 
Peter's own vision where God taught the Apostle the 
blessing of salvation for the Gentiles — "What God 
hath cleansed, make not thou common " (Acts x. 15). 
It is the proof-text phrase of the personal presence 
and influence of the Holy Spirit, livingly and contin- 
uously, in the progress of the Gospel. It is the influ- 
ence that convicts the world " of sin, and of righteous- 
ness, and of judgment" (John xvi. 8); and while the 
world in impenitence and disobedience can not receive 
it, yet wherever there is the tear of godly sorrow or 
the heart-throb of faith, there is the Holy Spirit in 
presence and blessing. It is not a presence to be 
waited for by the sinner in passive anxiety ; it is a 
presence to be received as fast as a heart of faith will 
open to its influence. It is not a presence to be denied 
to a penitent believer in any sense for personal posses- 
sion and joy, until he is baptized in water. It is on 
him and in him before his baptism, and in his baptism, 
and after his baptism. For thus could the Apostle ex- 
hort those that had already received the gift of the 
Holy Spirit in baptism, "Be filled with the Spirit " 
(Eph. v. 18) ; and thus he could behold the presence 
of the Spirit in one's baptism which would become a 
larger measure of blessing in the obedience of faith — 
" For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, 
whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free ; and 
were all made to drink of one Spirit " (I. Cor. xii. 13). 



39^> THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

Thus the errors of the opponents of baptism for 
the remission of sins have been surely dissipated, while 
the mistakes of the advocates of the old Apostolic 
doctrine, occasioned by the errors nevertheless script- 
urally refuted, will soon have had their day, and cease 
to be. It is, indeed, the final lesson of the truth of 
baptism for the remission of sins that the truth will 
shine more and more clearly, and be more scripturally 
and more helpfully preached, as the past mistakes in 
advocating it become less and less possible. Already 
these mistakes are no longer heard in many a pulpit. 
Many a sermon that rationalized the doctrine has passed 
into the limbo of defunct homiletics. Many a proof 
and illustration that once were delivered with the fire 
of an earnest purpose, could not possibly to-day catch 
fire in even an earnest delivery, nor at all convince an 
audience of candid Bereans. Many a little system, in 
which the Scripture doctrine was incorrectly set, and 
according to which it was incorrectly argued, would 
now only stir a smile with those that know the history 
of the reaffirmation of the doctrine, and would be but 
vague, lifeless logic to intelligent youth. The truth of 
baptism for the remission of sins is none the less 
preached in its scriptural good. It is simply less and 
less rationalized, less and less disproportionately af- 
firmed, less and less absurdly argued, less and less me-' 
chanically illustrated. 

The truth of the doctrine will prevail. It will be 
understood better and better in its Scripture setting. 
It will be truly and helpfully preached. It will be ar- 
gued in a true logic, which, in fullness of content and 
process, will silence all opposition to the doctrine. 
Along two lines especially, still edifying the need, it 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 39I 

will thus prove itself scriptural and catholic — as re- 
gards the status and duty of pious persons unbaptized, 
and as regards the status arid duty of unbaptized chil- 
dren whose parents and Sunday-school teachers are 
nurturing them in the chastening and admonition of 
the Lord. Along these two lines the doctrine of bap- 
tism for the remission of sins will signally appear in its 
lights of scripturalness and catholicity. For the re- 
mission of sins, as we have seen, in the sense of a 
representation, a confirmation, an association, a con- 
summation of salvation, the truth will, assuredly, more 
and more face the pious Paedobaptist. He has not 
been baptized. He is a devout believer in the Gospel 
of salvation ; but he has not been baptized. He 
thinks that he has been baptized, but in fact he has 
not. Neither his conscious sprinkling in manhood, 
nor his unconscious sprinkling in infancy, whichever 
it was, was baptism according to the Scriptures. The 
command of the Lord to him, to be baptized, baptized 
unto the remission of his sins, faces him, not that in 
no sense has he the promise of salvation yet unbap- 
tized. That promise he has in a real sense, accord- 
ing to his faith, as the Scriptures undeniably teach. 
But the Scriptures, undeniably teaching that " every 
one that believeth on him shall receive remission of 
sins" (Acts x. 43), undeniably teach also a baptism 
unto the remission of sins (Acts ii. 38) — a remission not 
fictional nor magical nor mechanical, but real and vital, 
in the sense of a representation, a confirmation, an as- 
sociation, a consummation of salvation. In that light 
shines the scriptural commandment for the pious Paedo- 
baptist or the devout Quaker to be baptized. He will 
be baptized, he can be baptized, only as he sees that 



392 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

light. His ignorance, his prejudice, his wrong teach- 
ing may make against his seeing; they may make it 
harder for him to see. But the truth ought to be 
preached in love and long suffering, enlightening his 
error, and warning him that, as he sees the light of 
baptism in its Scripture action and meaning, his past 
lack of baptism becomes not a guilty rejection for him- 
self of the counsel of God in not being baptized (Luke 
vii. 30). Such scriptural preaching will inform and 
convince pious unbaptized believers more directly and 
effectively than any sermon of rationalistic agnosticism 
concerning their status. Such a scriptural attitude of 
a church of Christ toward such a believer, having fel- 
lowship with him in prayer or song or the Lord's Sup- 
per (do not even the agnostics the same ?), while de- 
nying to him full and formal membership in the con- 
gregation, is the very way for the congregation histor- 
ically to accentuate baptism in Scripture action and 
meaning, and eventually, along with an Apostolic life 
of faith and good works, while showing the vital rela- 
tion of baptism to full and formal membership congre- 
gationally, to restore, in evangelistic progress, the 
Apostolic baptism to Christendom. 

But, unquestionably, above all, the "one baptism 
for the remission of sins " will prove its scripturalness 
and helpfulness, as children are trained according to 
the will of God. There will be less and less need to 
preach set sermons against the unscripturalness of in- 
fant baptism. The true, strategic discourse nowadays 
is to preach on the significance of the decline of infant 
baptism. For declining it surely is. Nothing can ar- 
rest that decline, not even the exhortations of earnest 
bishops, certainly not the far-off deductions of the pul- 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 393 

pit which begins by acknowledging the lack of com- 
mandment or precedent scripturally for the institution, 
and pleads for it simply as a privilege of parents. 
But as a child lives and grows while yet unbaptized, 
the concern of preachers, parents, teachers, must 
deeply be that the child be nurtured in the chastening 
and admonition of the Lord. Our faith and practice 
in so training childhood must be scripturally large and 
scripturally strong and hopeful. According to the 
Scriptures, there is not one duty or blessing of man- 
hood or womanhood, essentially related to spiritual 
character, that is not already present initially for the 
child, as it is nurtured in the chastening and admoni- 
tion of the Lord. Children a heritage of the Lord 
(Ps. cxxvii. 3), a godly seed in God's will (Mai. ii. 15), 
remembering and trusting God in their early days 
^Ecc. xii. 1 ; Ps. lxxi. 5), of such the kingdom of God 
(Luke xviii. 16), obeying their parents in the Lord 
(Eph. vi. 1), consecrated in the holy atmosphere of 
parental faith (I. Cor. vii. 4), from babyhood knowing 
the Bible as it makes them wise unto salvation through 
faith in Christ (II. Tim. iii. 14, 15) — such is the Script- 
ure teaching of the vital relation of a child to the re- 
demption in Christ. In this relation, not fictional but 
real, it is taught to obey its parents in the Lord, and 
so to please the Lord. It is taught to love God as it is 
taught to do right. It is taught to believe in Christ, 
as it is taught to be sorry for any sins and to pray the 
Lord to forgive them. It is taught to pray for any 
blessing for the need of its little life, in any concern of 
its little heart — the forgiveness of sins, the strength to 
be a better child, the care of an absent father, the pro- 
tection of the missionary in the far-off land. Only 



394 THE SCRIPTURAL AND CATHOLIC 

such training can be called a nurturing in the chasten- 
ing and admonition of the Lord ; and so the child is 
trained to that wonderful hour of distinct individual 
responsibility when publicly, in the congregation, it 
confesses the good confession, and is baptized unto the- 
remission of its sins. Scripturally, helpfully, beauti- 
fully it is a baptism, not magical nor mechanical, but 
real in the representation, confirmation, association, 
consummation of the salvation in whose reality and 
blessing the child has been reared all along. 

Thus, to conclude, the doctrine of baptism for the 
remission of sins is to be scripturally and helpfully 
taught, according to its place in the Biblical doctrine 
of redemption. Such a sense of baptism will appear 
more and more real, as the redemption that is in 
Christ is seen more clearly in all its real relations to 
the primal creation in Christ. The long line of Script- 
ures on the subject must become to us a familiar in- 
duction, as they teach the will, presence, work of God 
as regards the sins of men, in and through His only 
begotten Son — a God loving, long-suffering, "in Christ 
reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning unto 
them their trespasses " (II. Cor. v. 19), ■■* having for- 
given us all our trespasses ; having blotted out the bond 
written in ordinances that was against us, which was 
contrary to us : and he hath taken it out of the way, 
nailing it to the cross" (Col. ii. 13, 14). It is the 
Gospel of a God whose will, presence, work are in all 
the history and experience of men for their salvation, 
according to the eternal redemption obtained by Christ 
(I. Tim. ii. 1-6; Heb. ix. 12). It is a Gospel of sal- 
vation in whose full-orbed light we are to read every 
human need, duty, aspiration. It is the revelation of 



CREED OF BAPTISM. 395 

a redemption which, in God's eternal purpose and 
power, vitally affects all human life, from the smallest 
stir of conscience to the heart's reception of "the full- 
ness of the blessing of Christ" (Rom. ii. 13-16; xv. 
29), here in the sudden cry of a barbarous man for 
salvation (Acts xvi. 30), there in a child's orderly 
growth in the knowledge and experience of salvation 
(II. Tim. iii. 14, 15), initially in and through a king- 
dom not of this world, the increase of which shall 
have no end until the kingdom of the world has be- 
come the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ (John 
xviii. 13; Rev. xi. 15). As this unity of the Biblical 
truth of redemption is thus livingly held and taught 
in all ethical and spiritual realness, it will magnify the 
superabounding grace of God, and intensify the re- 
sponsibility of man. The Gospel of man's salvation 
will surely issue in judgment, according as he accepts 
it with the free gift of eternal life, or rejects it, to his 
eternal destruction from the face of the Lord (Rom. vi. 
23 ; II. Thess. i. 9). Such a salvation of grace, neither 
magical nor mechanical, but real and spiritual, grate- 
fully sings in breadth and depth of knowledge, after 
the primitive creed, "I acknowledge one baptism for 
the remission of sins." For that confession was possi- 
ble only in view of the pattern of sound words, in- 
spired of God — " One body and one Spirit, even as also 
ye were called in one hope of your calling ; one Lord, 
one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, 
who is over all, and through all, and in all" (Eph. 
iv. 4-6). 






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